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THE FIRE WAS SWEEPING CLOSER AND CLOSER. 

Ralph on the Midnight Flyer. Page 209 

















RALPH ON THE 
MIDNIGHT FLYER 

OR 

THE WRECK AT SHADOW 
VALLEY 


BY 

ALLEN CHAPMAN 

AUTHOR OF “RALPH OF THE ROUNDHOUSE/’ “RALPH ON THE 
ARMY TRAIN,” “THE RADIO BOYS* FIRST WIRELESS,” 
“THE RADIO BOYS TRAILING A VOICE,” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW YORK 

GROSSET & DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS 

- 

Made in the United States of America 









BOOKS FOR BOYS 

By Allen Chapman 


12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. 


THE RAILROAD SERIES 

RALPH OF THE ROUNDHOUSE 

Or Bound to Become a Railroad Man 
RALPH IN THE SWITCH TOWER 
Or Clearing the Track 
RALPH ON THE ENGINE 

Or The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail 
RALPH ON THE OVERLAND EXPRESS 

Or The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer 
RALPH, THE TRAIN DISPATCHER 
Or The Mystery of the Pay Car 
RALPH ON THE ARMY TRAIN 

Or The Young Railroader’s Most Daring Exploit 
RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 
Or The Wreck at Shadow Valley 


THE RADIO BOYS SERIES 

THE RADIO BOYS’ FIRST WIRELESS 
Or Winning the Ferberton Prize 
THE RADIO BOYS AT OCEAN POINT 
Or The Message that Saved the Ship 
THE RADIO BOYS AT THE SENDING STATION 
Or Making Good in the Wireless Room 
THE RADIO BOYS AT MOUNTAIN PASS 
Or The Midnight Call for Assistance 
THE RADIO BOYS TRAILING A VOICE 
Or Solving a Wireless Mystery 
THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE FOREST RANGERS 
Or The Great Fire on Spruce Mountain 


GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York 


Copyright, 1923, by 
GROSSET & DUNLAP 


Ralph on the Midnight Flyer 


Cl A 7 0 4 4 7 3 , . 


MAY -b 1323 








CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Trouble-Maker . w i 

II. Discipline . . . io 

III. A Good Deal to Think of ...... 21 

IV. Zeph Fathers an Idea.30 

V. On the Heels of a Shadow . w . 42 

VI. Touch and Go ... ..51 

VII. Something Bad.. 61 

VIII. A Clash of Authority . . . >, . . 70 

IX. It Happens Again.79 

X. The Night of the Strike . . . ;#j 86 

XI. More Friction.. 96 

XII. Treachery. . ., 106 

XIII. News from Shadow Valley . . . 115 

XIV. A Tragedy.125 

XV. Once More on the Rails.133 

XVI. Through Shadow Valley.140 

XVII. More Discipline.>, . 148 

XVIII. From Bad to Worse.155 

XIX. The Hold-Up in Shadow Valley ... 162 

XX. Strange Signals.172 

XXI. About Cherry .. 179 


















iv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXII. The Threat Direct.186 

XXIII. What Lies Ahead? .193 

XXIV. Terrible News. 200 

XXV. Through the Flaming Forest . . . 206 

XXVI. The Wreck.212 

XXVII. Where Is Cherry? .218 

XXVIII. Ralph on the Trail ... ... .. 228 

XXIX. The Run Is Ended.238 








RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT 

FLYER 


CHAPTER I 

THE TROUBLE-MAKER 

“What do you think, Ralph? Would any 
of our Great Northern employees be foolish 
enough to join this wildcat strike ?” 

“Well, what do you think yourself ?” asked 
Ralph Fairbanks, with some impatience in his 
tone. “You know these roughnecks as well as 
I do.” 

The general manager, in whose office at Rock- 
ton they were sitting, threw up both hands and 
fairly snorted his disgust. 

“Tve been a long time at the railroad game,” he 
declared; “but I never yet understood the psy¬ 
chology of a maintenance of way man. No, sir. 
In some things they are as loyal to the road as 
I am myself. And then they suddenly go off 
at a tangent because of something that, for the 
life of me, I cannot see is important.” 


2 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“There lies the difficulty—the germ of the 
whole trouble,” Ralph Fairbanks said thought¬ 
fully. 

He was a young fellow of attractive person¬ 
ality—good looking, too. The girls had begun 
to notice the young railroader, and had he not 
been so thoroughly devoted to his calling— 
and to the finest mother a fellow ever had— 
Ralph might have been somewhat spoiled by the 
admiration accorded him in certain quarters. 

Just now, however, having been called in from 
the train dispatchers’ department where he 
worked, the young fellow’s attention was deeply 
engaged in the subject the general manager had 
brought up. Ralph was an extraordinary em¬ 
ployee of the Great Northern. His superiors 
trusted him thoroughly. And having worked 
his way up from the roundhouse, switch tower, 
as fireman and engineer, to the train dispatcher’s 
grade, he was often called upon by the railroad 
officials for special duties. 

The general manager stared at the young 
fellow after his last remark for fully a minute 
before asking: 

“What do you mean by that? What is the 
germ of the whole trouble?” 

“The fact that the officials cannot see things 
just as the men see them.” 


THE TROUBLE-MAKER 


3 


“Oh!” 

“No getting away from the fact that the 
laborer seldom looks at a thing as his superior 
looks at it,” Ralph pursued earnestly. “A rule 
promulgated by some officer of the road seems 
to him the simplest way of getting at a needed 
result. But after it is spread on the board at 
the roundhouse, for instance, it creates a riot.” 

“So it does. And I am hanged if I have been 
able to understand in some cases why the men 
go off half-cocked over some simple thing.” 

“Not simple at all to them. It is often a rule 
that lops off some cherished privilege. It may 
be something that looks as though it were aimed 
at the laborer’s independence.” 

“Bah!” ejaculated the general manager with 
more than a little disdain in his tone. 

“You see!” laughed Ralph. “You can’t see it 
in the same way that I can, for instance. You 
make an order, say, changing the style of the 
caps the men wear around the roundhouse 
and switch towers, and see what a row you’ll 
have on your hands. Some ‘lawyer’ among ’em 
will see a deliberate attempt for somebody to 
graft—or worse. Those caps they get for a 
quarter and can buy in the little stores that crop- 
up around every railroad yard. The hogheads; 
and firemen wear them. Everybody wears them. 


4 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


You order that the cap hereafter worn shall be 
quite different from the present cap, and you'll 
start something that you’ll never be able to stop 
save by buckling down to the boys.” 

“But why?” demanded the official. “Tell me! 
What is the reason? Another cap might not 
cost them a penny more-” 

“Or might not cost them as much. That 
•would make no difference. You strike at his 
independence in changing the style of the cap. 
And his independence is the most cherished pos¬ 
session of the railroader. You should know 
that.” 

“I know that they think they are independent,” 
growled the general manager. “But like the rest 
of us, they are just about as independent as the 
hog on the cake of ice.” 

The young train dispatcher laughed again. 
He could really appreciate the mental attitude 
of both the disgruntled railroad workers, at this 
time stirred up all over the country from ocean 
to ocean, and the higher officials of the road, who 
realized fully that unless all branches of the rail¬ 
road pulled together during the next few months 
there would surely come financial wreckage to 
many systems. 

The Great Northern was really in better cir¬ 
cumstances than many trunk lines at the time. 



THE TROUBLE-MAKER 


5 


But on the division the headquarters of which 
were here in Rockton, friction had developed. 
fThe shopmen talked strike; the yardmen were 
disgruntled; the section hands of the division 
talked more than they worked. Altogether the 
situation was so serious that the general manager 
himself found it necessary to look the field over. 

And it was not strange that he should have 
called Ralph Fairbanks into conference. Young 
as the latter was, he was a link between the offi¬ 
cials and the workmen at large. 

“Look here, Ralph,” said the general manager 
suddenly, swinging about in his chair with one 
leg over its arm and pointing his lighted cigar 
at the young fellow, “I’m going to ask you a 
pointed question. What do you think of Bart 
Hopkins?” 

“Mr. Hopkins—the division super?” returned 
Ralph briskly and looking straight into the 
general manager’s face. “I think that Mr. 
Hopkins has a lovely daughter. As the boys say, 
she’s a peach!” 

“No,” replied the general manager gloomily, 
“she’s a Cherry—a different kind of fruit. But 
I am not asking your opinion of Cherry Hop¬ 
kins. How about Bart?” 

“I guess I haven’t been thinking much about 
him,” confessed Ralph slowly. “He has been 




6 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


here in charge for three months, and to tell the 
truth I have not spoken to him half-a-dozen 
times. He has nothing to do, of course, with 
the dispatchers’ department. Mr. Hopkins is a 
pleasant-spoken man.” 

“You know blamed well that I am not asking, 
either, about Bart Hopkins’ social qualities,” 
said the exasperated general manager. “What do 
you think of him as a railroad man? What is 
he doing here?” 

A flash of feeling came into Ralph Fairbanks’ 
face and he looked steadily at his old friend and 
superior. 

“What did you expect him to do here?” 

“Confound it all! I don't want to be cate¬ 
chised. I want you to answer me. I want to 
know what you think of the man’s work?” 

“You want it straight, then, do you?” asked 
Ralph sharply. 

“Yes, I do.” 

“Then I think he will end in setting every¬ 
body by the ears and bringing on a strike that 
may spread to every division of the Great 
Northern. You have forced this answer from 
me. Remember, you must not quote me.” 

“I won’t snitch,” said the general manager, 
with a wry grin. “I understand. Then you 


THE TROUBLE-MAKER 


7 

take the men’s view of Bart? You believe he 
is a trouble-maker?” 

“As sure as you are two feet high!” exclaimed 
Ralph, with conviction. 

“Huh! He has already brought about changes 
that have saved the division a mint of money.” 

“The other changes he has made will cost 
the road a good deal more—if there is a strike.” 

“Actually, do you believe there will be a strike, 
Ralph?” 

“If Andy McCarrey has his way, there will be. 
And Mr. Hopkins is playing right into McCar- 
rey’s hands.” 

“I can’t believe that Bart would deliberately 
do anything to bring on trouble.” 

“No. But he’s been bitten by the efficiency 
bug. The swelling is a terrible one,” said Ralph, 
smiling again. “Mr. Hopkins can’t seem to see 
things at all from the men’s standpoint. As I 
said before, an inability to see the effect of an 
order on the men’s minds is the germ of most 
friction between the laborers and the railroad 
heads. McCarrey is a bad man. He wants to 
lead a strike. Naturally a strike will put a lot 
of money in McCarrey’s hands. These strike 
leaders do as they please with strike funds— 
there is never any check on them. 


8 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“Besides, as I believe, he has a personal enmity 
for Mr. Hopkins. Somewhere in the East, where 
Hopkins came from, McCarrey got a grudge 
against him.” 

“Yes, I understand Barton Hopkins was in the 
middle of some trouble on the Eastern Shore 
Railroad. He is a stormy petrel. But he is 
making good here. He has saved us money,” 
reiterated the general manager. 

“Well, if money is more to the Great Northern 
than a loyal band of employees,” said Ralph with 
some bitterness, as he got up from his chair, “then 
you have got just what you want in Mr. Hop¬ 
kins. I’m telling you that I see trouble ahead. 
And it is coming soon.” 

Ralph Fairbanks felt deeply regarding the 
situation which had arisen in Rockton. When 
he walked down past the railroad shops a little 
later on his way home and looked in at the open 
windows, he could not fail to notice that the 
shopmen were talking together in groups instead 
of being busy at their various jobs. 

“Looks bad,” muttered Ralph. “I hated to 
knock the new super. Especially when he has 
got such a pretty daughter,” and he smiled 
reminiscently. 

Suddenly he started and then quickened his 
steps. Ahead of him he saw a trimly dressed 









THE TROUBLE-MAKER 


9 


figure crossing the railroad at Hammerby Street. 
He could not mistake the girl. Not when she 
had been in his mind the previous instant. 

Miss Cherry Hopkins was a pronounced 
blonde. It was at the time when bobbed hair 
was popular, and bobbed hair added to Cherry's 
chic appearance. She was slim, and of good 
figure. She wore a silk sweater, a sport skirt, 
and a hat that was in keeping. 

The girl crossed the tracks and reached the 
sidewalk on the other side. There were no dwell¬ 
ings near; only warehouses. And save for a 
group of roughly dressed men loitering behind 
the flagman’s shanty, there were few people near 
the crossing. 

o 

Suddenly Ralph saw something that caused 
him to dart forward, shouting angrily: 

‘‘Look out, Miss Cherry! Look out!” 

The girl flashed a look behind her. Fortu¬ 
nately she dodged involuntarily at Ralph Fair¬ 
banks’ cry, for the next instant a missile flew 
over her shoulder and crashed against the end of 
the warehouse. Had it struck the girl it would 
have hurt her seriously. 


CHAPTER II 


DISCIPLINE 

An over-ripe cabbage may be a dangerous 
missile. This one exploded almost like a bomb 
against the warehouse, spattering Cherry Hop¬ 
kins all over. She screamed and ran back 
toward Ralph Fairbanks. A harsh voice shouted : 

“Poor shot! Yer oughter smashed that Plop- 
kins gal, Whitey.” 

Ralph saw that the group of fellows behind 
the flagman’s shack had scattered. One long- 
legged fellow was ahead and evidently in some 
fear of apprehension. 

“You wait right here, Miss Cherry!” the 
young dispatcher cried. “I’m going to try to 
get that fellow.” 

He dashed along the tracks and through an 
alley of which he knew. He hoped to head 
off the fellow called Whitey,” who he was 
quite sure had thrown the cabbage. 

But when he came out upon North Main Street 
he could not see any sign of the hoodlum. He 
looked into several small stores and tenement 

io 


DISCIPLINE 


II 


house halls, but the fellow had made good his 
escape. 

When he returned by the way of Hammerby 
Street he saw Cherry Hopkins trying to wipe 
the decayed vegetable matter off her sweater and 
skirt. Her pretty hat was likewise stained. 
When Ralph came near enough he saw that the 
girl had been crying. 

No man or boy likes to see a girl weep. 

Ralph hesitated, not knowing what to say to 
Cherry Hopkins. He had never been more than 
casually acquainted with the supervisor’s 
daughter; but he did admire her. 

Ralph could not have failed to attract the 
young girl’s attention during the three months 
she had spent in Rockton. In the first place, 
almost everybody in the small but thriving city 
knew the young train dispatcher. 

In the first story about Ralph, “Ralph of the 
Roundhouse,” the young fellow’s beginnings on 
the Great Northern were fully related. His 
father had been one of the builders of the Great 
Northern, but through unfortunate speculations 
he had died poor and left Ralph and his mother 
to struggle along as best they could. In addi¬ 
tion, Mr. Fairbanks’ partner, Gaspar Farring¬ 
ton, had been dishonest, and had Ralph and his 
widowed mother at his mercy. 


12 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


How Ralph checkmated Farrington as well 
as the exciting incidents of his career in the 
roundhouse is all narrated in that first volume 
of the series. 

In ensuing volumes the young fellow’s career as 
towerman, fireman, engineer, and in the different 
grades of dispatcher, is told in full. The sixth 
volume, ‘‘Ralph on the Army Train,” is the 
story of the youth’s work in that great part which 
the railroaders took in the war. By Ralph’s 
individual effort, a heavily loaded train of our 
boys bound for the embarking port was taken 
through to safety in spite of a plot to wreck the 
train. 

He was now, some months later, back on his 
old job as chief dispatcher of this division of 
the Great Northern. He might have had a good 
position on the main line; but, in taking it, he 
would have had to sacrifice some independence 
and, more than all, must have given up the little 
home he and his mother owned in Rockton and 
removed the widow from surroundings that she 
loved. 

“My chance to get a good thing will come 
again,” Ralph had told Mrs. Fairbanks. “And 
really, I am my own boss here. Even Barton 
Hopkins can’t tell me where to get off.” 

For divisional supervisor Hopkins had soon 


DISCIPLINE 


13 


become very much disliked. He was a good 
railroader—no doubt of that. But he should 
have been a drill-master in a military school 
rather than the head of a division of a railroad 
at a time when almost every railroad employee 
felt that he had been whipsawed between the 
Government and his employing railroad. 

Hopkins lacked tact; he saw nothing but the 
job and what he could make of it. His god 
was discipline! He was upright and honest, 
but, as the saying goes, he bent over backwards 
when he stood erect. And Ralph Fairbanks 
was pretty thoroughly convinced that grave 
trouble was brewing because of Mr. Hopkins’ 
methods. 

Just at this moment, however, it was Cherry 
Hopkins in whose affairs the young dispatcher 
was deeply interested. As she tried to wipe the 
stains from her skirt and “sniffled” back her 
tears, Ralph approached slowly. 

“Now, Miss Cherry,” he begged, “don’t cry 
about it. If I could have caught that fellow I 
would have handed him over to one of the road’s 
policemen. It didn’t really hurt you-” 

“I’m just as mad, Ralph Fairbanks, as I can 
be!” interrupted the girl, with heat. “And it 
is always the way wherever we go. The rail¬ 
road men seem to hate us all.” 



H 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“Indeed?” rejoined Ralph thoughtfully. 
“Have you been troubled in Rockton before 
this?” 

“Of course I have. And mother, too. We 
have been followed on the street, and booed and 
hissed. Father doesn’t mind-” 

“I am quite sure he has not reported it to the 
chief detective of the road, Mr. Bob Adair.” 

“Father would not report such a thing. He 
considers it beneath notice.” 

“I’ll say that cabbage was not beneath notice!” 
cried Ralph. “If it had hit you—well! 
Come along, Miss Cherry. Let me see you 
home.” 

“Oh, I don’t want to trouble you, Mr.. Fair¬ 
banks.” 

“You know I live in your direction,” said 
Ralph, pleasantly. “We’ll walk along together. 
And you tell me, Miss Cherry, who these fellows 
are who have insulted your mother and you.” 

“Oh, dear me, how do I know who they are?” 
cried the girl, despairingly. “They are low fel¬ 
lows, of course. And many of them are just 
boys—loafers. They do not even work for 
the Great Northern.” 

“But their fathers and brothers do, I sup¬ 
pose?” ruminated Ralph. 

“I suppose so. You see, we have to cross the 






DISCIPLINE 


15 


railroad to do our shopping. When we come 
into this district, if there is a group of idlers 
hanging around they are almost sure to call 
after us. It is not pleasant.” 

“It should be reported. But, of course, it is 
your father’s business,” said Ralph thought¬ 
fully. “I might speak to Mr. Adair. He is a 
friend of mine. But unless Mr. Hopkins sanc¬ 
tioned any move against the rowdies, I am 
afraid-” 

“I wish you would come in and talk to father 
about it,” Cherry cried eagerly. “He might 
listen to you/’ 

“Is he at home at this hour?” asked the young 
dispatcher doubtfully. “I don’t know about 
saying anything to him regarding a private 
matter.” 

“I want him to know how you drove those 
fellows away,” she said. “Do come in. You 
know my father, don’t you?” 

“Slightly. We do not come in contact much,” 
Ralph said slowly. 

“You will like him, Mr. Fairbanks,” said the 
girl earnestly. “He is really a wonderful man. 
Wherever he has held a position the company 
has been glad of his services. He is marvel¬ 
ously efficient. And he is forever planning im¬ 
provements and scheming out ways of saving 



16 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

money for the road. Oh, yes, they all admire 
him.” 

“The men, too?” Ralph asked shrewdly. 

“Oh! The laborers? I don’t know about 
that.” 

“Quite an important point, I assure you,” 
said Ralph grimly. “No matter how much 
money an official saves the road, if he doesn’t 
hold the confidence and liking of the general 
run of railroad workers, he is distinctly not 
a success.” 

“Oh! Do you believe that?” she cried. 

“I know it. Railroad workers are the most 
clannish men in the world. If they have 
worked long for a particular road they are as 
loyal to that road as though they owned it. And 
they resent any meddling with the usual routine 
of affairs. You have got to handle them with 
gloves. I fancy, Miss Cherry,” added Ralph 
somewhat grimly, “that your father has thrown 
away his gloves.” 

They just then came to the Hopkins house. 
It was one of the best houses in the section of 
Rockton in which Ralph and his mother lived. 
It was rather far from the railroad and the 
railroad tenements; so supervisor Hopkins’ em¬ 
ployees were not likely to be seen often. 


DISCIPLINE 


1 7 


“Come in—do,” urged Cherry, opening the 
gate. “There’s father at the library window.” 

The young dispatcher saw Barton Hopkins 
looking through the pane. He was a man with 
a very high forehead, colorless complexion, a 
high-arched nose upon which were set astride a 
pair of shell-rimmed eyeglasses, which masked 
pale blue eyes. One could warm up to a chunk 
of ice about as readily as one could to Mr. Bar¬ 
ton Hopkins. 

And yet, Ralph was sure, there was not a 
thing the matter with the supervisor save that 
he was not human! He was a machine. His 
mental powers were not lubricated with either 
charity or an interest in the personal affairs of 
his fellow men. 

He stared without a semblance of emotion at 
Ralph Fairbanks as Cherry urged the latter into 
the library and introduced the young fellow. 

“Oh, yes. I know Mr. Fairbanks,” said Mr. 
Hopkins, and looked the visitor over as though 
he questioned if he might not in some way show 
Ralph how to be more efficient in his job. 

When Cherry explained volubly how she had 
been attacked by the rowdies at the railroad 
crossing and Ralph had come to her assistance, 
Mr. Hopkins rose and shook hands with the 


18 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

visitor again. But his second handshake was 
exactly like the first one. Ralph thought of 
grasping a dead fish! 

“There are too many unemployed men hang¬ 
ing about the yards/' said the supervisor in his 
decisive way, after Cherry had excused herself 
in order to change to a clean dress. “I am 
about to point that out to our police department. 
They should either be given a sentence to the 
farm or be run out of town.” 

“A good many of those idlers have been em¬ 
ployees of the road. Their homes are here. 
It is not exactly their fault that they have been 
thrown out of work. And they do not under¬ 
stand why they should be idle.” 

“What is that to the Great Northern?” de¬ 
manded the supervisor with some hauteur. “A 
railroad is a corporation doing business for 
gain. It is not a charitable organization.” 

“It should be both,” declared Ralph earnestly. 
He felt that he could oppose this man safely. 
Hopkins could not touch his department. “The 
way the Great Northern—and this division 
particularly—has kept together a loyal bunch of 
workmen is by caring for those workmen and 
their families through dull seasons. I under¬ 
stand that a man has been lopped off each 
section gang of late. In three cases I know that 


DISCIPLINE 


19 


the man discharged owned, or was paying for, 
his own little home. They are up against it, for 
other work is not easily obtained now.” 

“I have had that brought to my attention 
before,” answered Mr. Hopkins, with a gesture 
of finality. “I repeat, it does not interest me— 
or the Great Northern.” 

“It is going to interest you, I fear,” said 
Ralph warmly. 

“I do not understand you, Mr. Fairbanks.” 

“The men are getting down on you,” said the 
young fellow bluntly. “As you see they insult 
and threaten Miss Cherry and your wife. 
There will be some outbreak-” 

“Do you think that if I knew that to be 
true it would influence me in the least?” asked 
Mr. Hopkins sternly. 

“It would better. Your wife and daughter 
are likely to suffer. Of course, the discharged 
men will probably not have anything to do with 
it; but they cannot control their sympathizers. 
There is talk of a strike. If a strike comes-” 

“Suppose you let such matters be handled by 
your superiors, Mr. Fairbanks,” said the super¬ 
visor coldly. “It is not in the province of a 
train dispatcher.” 

“Quite true,” Ralph said, rising abruptly. 

Cherry had not come back into the room. 




20 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


He felt that he really was not welcome here. 
And he feared he might be tempted to say some¬ 
thing even more unwise to the stiff-necked 
supervisor. 

“You will excuse me, Mr. Hopkins. I really 
think your daughter and wife are in some 
danger if they go downtown. Pardon me for 
saying so.” 

“Thank you,” said Barton Hopkins without 
an ounce of expression in either his voice or his 
countenance. “Good-day, Mr. Fairbanks.” 

“Humph!” thought Ralph, as he fumbled for 
the knob of the front door. “I reckon I know 
where I get off with Mr. Hopkins. Oh, yes!” 



CHAPTER III 


A GOOD DEAL TO THINK OF 

It was growing dusk as Ralph Fairbanks left 
the bungalow occupied by the divisional super¬ 
visor and his family. The young fellow felt 
some little disappointment at not seeing Cherry 
again. He believed that the girl’s mother had 
deliberately kept her from coming back into the 
library where the dispatcher had been talking 
with Barton Hopkins. 

“Not that I wanted to talk with the super,” 
considered Ralph, as he found his way out of 
the house and closed the door behind him. “I 
would much rather have not done so. He’s got 
an eye as cold as ice. I wonder if he wasn’t 
hatching something in his keen brain right then 
to make our department more efficient,” and 
Ralph chuckled grimly. 

“Oh, well, I guess I am out of his line, come 
to think of it. But he is certainly going to 
come a cropper before he gets through in 

Rockton. When the Brotherhoods begin to 

21 


22 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


take notice of him, the Great Northern will lose 
its-Hullo! What’s this?” 

As he came out through the gateway he saw 
several shadowy figures across the street. The 
street lamps were not yet lighted in this block 
and it was just dark enough for those figures 
Ralph saw to seem uncertain. 

Of course, he had no expectation of being 
followed. He had no quarrel with any branch 
of the union men. In fact, most of the 
employees on the division w r ere Ralph Fairbanks’ 
personal friends. 

But he looked twice at the shadowy group as 
he turned toward his mother’s cottage. Again 
he looked back. 

“There he goes!” suddenly shouted a voice. 
“One of Hopkins’ tools. Yah! A lickspittle 
of the super. Yah!” 

It. is a fact that “sticks and stones can break 
your bones, but names will never hurt you”; 
just the same, that old saw does not salve over 
the sting of unfair vituperations. Ralph was 
red-hot on the instant. 

To be dignified, too, is all very well. But 
Ralph knew 7 these hoodlums quite well enough 
to be sure that only one course with them would 
make the proper impression. He possessed as 
much brute courage as any healthy young fellow. 



A GOOD DEAL TO THINK OF 


23 

And he did not purpose to allow these loafers 
to blackguard him on the public street. 

The dispatcher turned swiftly and started 
across the street. The several men and boys in 
the group yelled again. Some missile hurtled 
through the dusk and fairly fanned Ralph’s 
cheek! 

“Who are you rascals ?” demanded Ralph 
angrily. “I’ll show you a thing or two!” 

He dashed at the group. None of them was 
very courageous, for the crowd broke and fled 
before him. Some woman, looking out of the 
window of a neighboring house, screamed. 
Ralph caught one fellow and pulled him back, 
throwing him heavily to the walk. 

“I’ll find out who you are!” declared the 
young train dispatcher. “What do you mean 
by interfering with me?” 

The other fellows had fled noisily. The 
street lights suddenly flashed up and Ralph was 
able to distinguish the features of the man he 
had captured. 

“Whitey Malone! I thought you were in 
jail,” the young dispatcher said in surprise. 
“The judge gave you long enough there-” 

“I got me fine paid,” blubbered the fellow. 

Ralph smelled liquor on his breath. He knew 
Whitey Malone as a good deal of a disgrace to 



24 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


the community. lie had never been a real rail¬ 
road man. He was merely a hanger-on at the 
shops, sometimes doing odd jobs, or being taken 
on the shop payroll for a few weeks. 

“It is too bad anybody was foolish enough to 
pay your fine,” declared Ralph sternly. 

“Oh, I’ve got good friends in spite of Bart 
Hopkins and his new rules that turned me out 
of me job,” snarled Whitey. 

“And a good friend paid your fine?” re¬ 
marked Ralph curiously. “Could the friend be 
Andy McCarrey, for instance?” 

“You want to know too much, Fairbanks,” 
said Whitey sullenly. 

“I’m a good guesser,” rejoined the young 
dispatcher, dragging the fellow to his feet. 
“Now, listen to me, Whitey. This time I’ll let 
you go. I won’t turn you over to the police as 
you deserve.” 

“You wouldn’t dare!” cried Whitey. 

“You tempt me too far and I’ll show you 
right now what I dare to do. You keep away 
from Supervisor Hopkins’ house.” 

“Yah! You’re one of his tools, you are!” 
exclaimed Whitey. 

“Listen!” commanded Ralph, shaking him. 

“Ow! Ow! Ouch!” 

“Listen! You keep away from this street! 


A GOOD DEAL TO THINK OF 


25 


And further, don’t you trouble Mr. Hopkins’ 
wife or daughter. Remember, I’ve got your 
number. If you throw another cabbage or 
annoy the Hopkins' family in any way, you’ll 
go to the farm.” 

He threw the ill-smelling fellow from him 
and turned sharply to walk away. Whitey 
could not resist another word. He yelled: 

“Hopkins’ tool! You wait a while, Ralph 
Fairbanks. You’ll see what’s going to happen.” 
Then he ran off at top speed. 

Ralph did not attempt to follow the fellow. 
To punish the half-drunken Whitey Malone 
would be as useless as fencing with a windmill. 
If anything was to be done to avert trouble and 
put fear of the law into the bad element around 
the railroad yards and shops, those higher up 
must feel the weight of authority. Whitey 
and his ilk were quite irresponsible. 

Ralph told his mother the tale at the supper 
table, relating the entire incident from the 
moment he had seen Cherry Hopkins attacked 
by the rowdies. 

“Just the same, there is trouble brewing,” he 
added. “It will center about Mr. Bart Hopkins. 
And yet, I can’t blame the G. M. for backing 
the super up. Mr. Hopkins is a wonderfully 
able man. But discipline means more to him 


26 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


than the contentment and happiness of his 
employees.” 

“I am sorry if there is going to be more 
trouble on the road, Ralph,” the widow said, 
with a sigh. 

“Oh, it won't affect me any,” he said cheer¬ 
fully. “I have nothing to do with the shopmen 
or the maintenance of way men.” 

“I thought you were safely out of trouble 
when you got in the train dispatchers’ depart¬ 
ment,” said Mrs. Fairbanks reflectively. “But 
just see what happened in war time. Your peril 
on that army train-” 

“Shucks! Nothing like that is likely to 
happen again, Mother,” he interrupted. “I’m a 
regular stick-in-the-mud now. Youngest chief 
dispatcher of any division of the Great Northern 
system. Why! I'm an old man.” 

“You are just as likely as ever to be tempted 
to do a reckless thing,” she said, but she smiled 
at him. “An old man! You are just a baby to 
me, Ralph, after all.” 

He laughed; but he blushed, too. 

“Don’t baby me too much, Mother,” he said. 
“The girls don’t think I aril a baby.” 

“Indeed?” she asked. “Are there more girls? 
I don’t know but you are in more danger off 
the road, than on.” 



A GOOD DEAL TO THINK OF 


27 


“A new one,” said Ralph frankly. He and 
his mother were the very best of friends. 
“Didn’t I tell you the new super has a daughter? 
And she’s a peach! No! I mean she is a 
Cherry.” 

“Cherry?” 

“Cherry Hopkins. She is the girl I saw 
home just now.” 

“Is she as pretty as her name?” asked Mrs. 
Fairbanks curiously. 

“You bet she is! I’d like to have you see her. 
I don’t see how such a cold and severe propo¬ 
sition as Mr. Hopkins ever came by such a 
daughter.” 

“So you think well of her, do you?” asked the 
widow rather wistfully. 

“I surely do. But I don’t know what she 
thinks of me. You know how these girls are. 
They keep everything close. A fellow doesn’t 
have a chance to learn their opinion of him. 
They treat ’em all alike.” 

“Quite right,” returned the widow. “The 
reticent girl keeps out of danger.” 

“Humph! I don’t know how much danger 
she keeps out of,” said Ralph. “But believe 
me, if something is not done pretty soon to 
appease the shopmen it will not be safe for either 
Cherry or her mother to walk on the streets.” 


28 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“Well, my dear boy,” begged the widow, 
“I hope you will keep out of any part in the 
trouble. You surely cannot help Mr. Hopkins.” 

“He wouldn’t let me help him if I could do 
so,” answered Ralph. 

“All the better,” his mother said with satis¬ 
faction. “If you cannot be drawn into the 
trouble by either side in the controversy, very 
well. I shall feel safe, at least.” 

“I guess I am out of it, for once,” admitted 
her son. “It gives a fellow a lot to think of. 
I hate to see trouble come to the division. That 
Andy McCarrey ought to be jailed. But, on 
the other hand, I feel that Barton Hopkins is 
quite as much at fault. By gracious! If I 
were the G. M.-” 

At that his mother burst into laughter. “Oh! 
You are looking forward to what you would do 
if you were running the Great Northern,” she 
jeered. 

“I don’t care,” cried her son. “I can see as 
far into a brick wall as the next one. And 
when I know things are going wrong-” 

“You think you could fix them all up, Ralph?” 

“I know I could keep things straighter than 
Hopkins does. Maybe I would not be so popu¬ 
lar with the directors and stockholders; but I’d 




A GOOD DEAL TO THINK OF 


29 

run this division without having so much fric¬ 
tion. You can bet on that, Mother.” 

‘‘I never bet,” she replied soberly, but her eyes 
dancing. 

She enjoyed hearing Ralph become enthusi¬ 
astic over railroad matters. Having been a 
railroader’s wife and having joined with hei 
husband in all his hopes and intentions, she could 
appreciate Ralph’s enthusiasm. 

“Well, if you were betting, I could give you 
a tip,” laughed Ralph at last. “One of two 
things is going to happen. Either Mr. Hopkins 
will be transferred to some other sphere of use¬ 
fulness, or the division is due to suffer the 
worst strike it has ever had. I am confident of 
this, Mother—I am confident.” 


CHAPTER IV 


ZEPH FATHERS AN IDEA 

Under the present arrangement of his duties 
as chief dispatcher for the division, Ralph Fair¬ 
banks seldom took the “graveyard trick,” as it is 
called. Yet occasionally he went downtown 
and looked in at the office in the late evening. 

Especially when he knew that a particular 
schedule was being put through. Just now the 
division was handling extra wheat trains, and 
although he had O.K.’d his assistant’s schedule 
for that night, Ralph somehow felt that he 
should see if all was going smoothly on this 
particular evening. 

The trouble over Mr. Hopkins and his 
daughter had perhaps gotten on the young chief 
dispatcher’s nerves—if he really possessed such 
things. He tried to read an exciting book of 
travel and adventure after supper while his 
mother did some darning; but exciting things 
which had happened in his own career came to 
Ralph’s mind so insistently that he lost the thread 
of the writer’s story. 

30 


. 


ZEPH FATHERS AN IDEA 


31 


With several friends, including Mr. Bob 
Adair, chief of the Great Northern’s detective 
force, Ralph had fought many an enemy of the 
road to a standstill. There was another person, 
too, who was sure to turn up in the vicinity 
of any railroad trouble. 

Ralph suddenly started out of his chair. 

‘‘There!” he exclaimed, as his mother looked 
at him wonderingly. “I had forgotten some¬ 
thing. Do you know who I thought I saw 
to-day downtown?” 

“I have no idea, Ralph.” 

“I believe Zeph is in Rockton. I saw a fellow 
who looked very much like him passing along 
the street. But it was when I was in conference 
with the G. M. and I could not hail him. 
Afterward—being mixed up in Miss Hopkins* 
trouble, and all—I forgot Zeph.” 

“Zeph Dallas?” repeated Mrs. Fairbanks. “I 
would dearly love to see the boy again. He is 
so unsettled.” 

“He is a bird on the wing, I guess,” said 
Ralph. “Never know where he will perch next. 
But while he is in Rockton I think I know where 
to find him,” and he reached his hat down from 
its peg. 

“Will you go downtown to look him up, 
Ralph?” asked the widow placidly. 



RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“Yes, ma’am. I’d like to see Zeph.” 

“So would I. Bring him home with you, 
Ralph. You know we have a spare bed, and 
Zeph Dallas is just as welcome to it as though 
he were your brother.” 

“I don’t know,” laughed Ralph, going to the 
door. “Zeph is a born vagabond. Nothing 
keeps him long in one place but some in¬ 
trigue in which he can have a part. He says 
he is preparing himself to wear Bob Adair’s 
shoes.” 

“Mr. Adair is a very fine man,” said Mrs. 
Fairbanks. “But his 'calling is hazardous. I 
should not like to bring up a son to be a 
detective.” 

“Zeph never had any bringing up,” declared 
Ralph, as he went out, and the echoes of his 
mother’s last remark, “Poor fellow!” rang in 
his ears as he started downtown. 

Like most railroad terminal towns, Rockton 
had a poor section, inhabited by railroad laborers 
and those hanging to their skirts, and also a 
much better group of dwellings. Ralph passed 
through the better part of town without, of 
course, apprehending any trouble. 

Nor was he accosted when he crossed the 
tracks and approached the station, over which 
the dispatchers’ offices were situated. For his 


ZEPH FATHERS AN IDEA 


33 


first thought was, after all, of the night’s 
schedule. One cannot have the responsibility 
that Ralph Fairbanks shouldered without hav¬ 
ing one’s work uppermost in one’s mind all of 
the time. 

The two men on duty welcomed their young 
chief cheerfully. There really was not an 
employee of the road about the Rockton terminal 
who had not some reason for liking Ralph. 
They might not all agree with him on railroad 
matters; but they had to respect his inde¬ 
pendence. 

“Fellow in here to see you a while back, 
jChief,” said one of the men on duty. 

“Who was it?” 

“Nobody I ever saw before,” was the reply. 
“Kind of an odd stick.” Ralph described his 
friend, Zeph Dallas, and the operator nodded. 
“That’s the fellow. Can’t be any mistake.” 

“Didn’t he say where he could be found?” 
asked Ralph. 

“No, Chief. A close-mouthed duck, if you 
ask me. He slipped in and slid out again like 
an eel through a sewer pipe.” 

Ralph laughed. “Some metaphor, I’ll say, 
Johnny. Well, the sched.’s all right, I guess?” 

“Things are going sweet,” he was told. “But 
when they come to double up those wheat trains 


34 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


next week, how we going to get the new Mid¬ 
night Flyer into the clear between here and 
Oxford ? That is what is bothering me, Chief.” 

“If you want to know,” admitted Ralph, as 
he opened the door to depart, “that little thing 
is bothering me, too.” 

He was not, however, bothering his mind over 
railroad affairs when he descended the stairs to 
the yard. He was thinking of Zeph. That 
peculiar and vagabondish fellow must be around 
Rockton for some pertinent design. And it was 
evident that he wanted to see his old chum, 
Ralph Fairbanks. 

The latter walked down the yard and looked 
in at the open windows of one of the lighted 
shops. The night crew was at work on one of 
the big freight haulers. Like a row of giant 
elephants a number of other locomotives stood 
in the gloomy end of the shop. Repairs were 
away behind schedule. He heard the hoarse 
voice of McGuire, one of the oldest and most 
faithful shop foremen, bawling his crew out for 
their clumsiness. 

“It’s touch and go, sure enough,” considered 
Ralph. “I wonder just how much power that 
Andy McCarrey has over the men employed by 
the Great Northern? Of course, he has no 
standing with any of the Brotherhoods; but 


ZEPH FATHERS AN IDEA 


35 


these roughnecks—Hullo! Who goes there?” 

He had passed the shop and had turned 
toward a small gate in the stockade which he 
believed would be unlocked. A shadowy figure 
flashed into a deeper covert of shadow beside 
one of the tool houses. 

“And only one of two classes try to hide 
around a railroad yard—a crook or a yard 
detective. Humph!” muttered Ralph. 

He walked on toward the gate. But just as 
he got to the end of the shed he jumped side- 
wise and dived into the deeper shadow with arms 
outstretched. He grabbed somebody almost 
instantly. 

“Stand still!” he commanded. “Who are 
you? What are you doing here?” 

Instantly the struggling person he had seized 
stood still. He no longer offered to fight for 
his liberty. Ralph made out that he was tall— 
taller than himself—-roughly dressed, and that 
he had lost his hat. 

Then, as the young dispatcher passed his 
hand over the mop of hair the fellow wore and 
his palm traversed the other’s face, he 
marked a big and high-arched nose and high 
cheekbones. He had a wide mouth. 

“By George!” exclaimed Ralph, “I believe you 
are the fellow I am looking for.” 


36 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“lust so,” chuckled his prisoner. 

“Zeph!” 

“Same to you, Ralph!” 

The two shook hands warmly, and then Zeph 
picked up his cap and stuck it sideways upon 
his thatch of hair. 

“How’s the boy?” asked Zeph, and Ralph 
knew he was grinning. 

“I’ll tell you,” chuckled Ralph. “I’m gravely 
disturbed over a friend of mine-” 

“Is his name Andy McCarrey?” whispered 
Zeph, with his lips close to his friend’s ear. 

“Goodness!” gasped the dispatcher. “What 
do you mean? I’ve been troubled about a fellow 
named Dallas. But what do you know about 
McCarrey ?” 

“I know enough to believe it is not best to 
take his name in vain around these yards,” 
muttered Zeph. “Come on out of here. I’ll 
give it up for to-night. It w^as you I wanted to 
talk to, anyway, Ralph.” 

“I don’t understand you at all, Zeph,” com¬ 
plained the young dispatcher, as they walked 
toward the gate in the yard fence. 

“Come on over to the Owl Lunch, and I’ll give 
you an earful,” said Zeph. “The missus all 
right?” 

“She is fine, and was asking after you. 




ZEPH FATHERS AN IDEA 


37 

When you come to town, Zeph, you should come 
to our house.” 

“Can’t do it. No knowing who or what may 
be trailing me,” declared the vagabond. 

“Nonsense!” 

“That’s the truth. Right now I got the tail 
end of something that I want to look up. This 
McCarrey-” 

“Is the leader of the men who are trying to 
engineer the wildcat strike,” explained Ralph. 

“Uh-huh? He’s more than that.” 

“What do you mean?” Ralph asked curiously. 

They stepped into the narrow space in the owl 
car and climbed on two stools. 

“Milk and mince pie,” said Zeph. 

“What a stomach!” exclaimed Ralph, smiling. 
“Don’t you ever have indigestion?” 

“That is what I’m ordering it for. I have to 
stay awake all night. Can’t sleep much with 
cold milk and ‘graveyard pie’ fighting for posses¬ 
sion of the digestive tract.” 

“You are as bad as ever,” sighed Ralph. 

“Worse,” admitted Zeph, taking his first bite 
of the pie. Then, out of the corner of his 
mouth he mumbled: “Know where I just came 
from ?” 

“I have no idea. Haven’t heard from you for 
weeks. You can’t write, I suppose?” 



38 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“Never write letters. Have to explain ’em 
afterward, perhaps. Besides, a letter has often 
traced a man. ‘Leave no trace’ is my motto.” 

“Talk sense,” urged Ralph. 

“Am.” 

“It doesn’t sound like it. Tell me what makes 
you so mysterious?” 

“I am as mysterious as this ‘graveyard pie,’ 
ain’t I?” suddenly chuckled Zeph Dallas, hold¬ 
ing up the wedge of pie to look at it. “Hullo! 
Here’s a splinter,” and he picked out the bit of 
wood. “The beef they ground up for this mince 
meat must have had a wooden leg. Anyhow, 
listen.” 

“Shoot!” exclaimed Ralph anxiously, sipping 
his coffee. “Where did you come from?” 

“Down the road. I was working for a few 
days with Section Twenty.” 

“A section gang hand! Believe me, that’s some 
job,” said Ralph, in wonder. 

“Somebody has been doing some reefing down 
there, and Mr. Adair put me wise to it. Eh? 
iYou don’t know what ‘reefing’ is ?” 

“No,” admitted the dispatcher. 

“It’s when fellows get a chance to open cases 
and crates in transit, remove the goods, fill ’em 
up with rocks and rubbish, and send ’em on to 


ZEPH FATHERS AN IDEA 


39 

the consignees. It was a pretty job, too. I 
didn’t find out who did it.” 

“What? A failure to your account?” laughed 
Ralph, knowing how Zeph prided himself upon 
carrying through every little job the chief de¬ 
tective gave him to handle. 

“Not a failure yet,” mumbled Zeph. “ ’Tain’t 
finished.” 

“Then it brought you back here to Rockton?” 

“Nothing like that. There was an accident on 
our section and we got over-time work last night. 
We had just got the tracks clear when this new 
Midnight Flyer came through. Say! who’s 
handling the throttle on that big engine?” 

“Old Byron Marks.” 

“Wow! That antediluvian pill?” 

“Seniority does it,” said Ralph briefly. “It’s 
the men’s own fault if the dead ones get the 
best runs.” 

“Well, believe me,” muttered Zeph, “if old 
By Marks heard what I heard last night you 
couldn’t hoist him into the cabin of that locomo¬ 
tive with a derrick.” 

“What do you mean, Zeph?” and now Ralph 
Fairbanks was immensely interested in what his 
peculiar friend had to say. 

“I tell you what, Ralph, I’ve got an idea. It’s 


40 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


my own idea, and it is worth somebody’s atten¬ 
tion.” 

‘‘Let us have it,” said the dispatcher. ‘‘You 
have always been original, if nothing more, 
Zeph.” 

“Many thanks, dear boy! Well, listen ! This 
Andy McCarrey.” He stared all about, noting 
that the man running the lunch wagon had 
stepped out. “Take note I’ve heard a deal about 
that fellow up and down the road.” 

“You’ve heard nothing good of him, I war¬ 
rant,” grumbled Ralph. 

“According to which side your bread is but¬ 
tered on,” was the reply. “Most of these rough¬ 
necks swear by him.” 

“But not the officials,” said Ralph. 

“Right-o. Now, last night, as we section men 
stood beside the tracks down there waiting for 
the Midnight Flyer to pass, I heard one fellow 
say: ‘Andy McCarrey says “Thumbs up!” ’ 

And his mate said right back: ‘Ye-as. And 

\ 

suppose Andy says “Thumbs down!” How 
about it?’ 

“Now, you know, and I know, Ralph, the old 
game of ‘thumbs up and thumbs down.’ And 
then, in the times of the old Roman gladiators, 
the populace condemned the fallen gladiator to 


ZEPH FATHERS AN IDEA 


41 


death or reprieved him by a turn of the thumb. 
Get me?” 

“I can’t say I do wholly,” admitted Ralph. 

“That Midnight Flyer whizzed by. Those two 
fellows looked at it and at old man Marks’s 
head sticking out of the cab window—if that’s 
who it was. They were speaking of that new 
fast train, the crack train of this division. 
Eh?” 

“It would seem so,” confessed Ralph, in a 
worried tone. 

“And it is in Andy McCarrey’s hands whether 
that train goes through safely or not,” whispered 
Zeph, his lips close to Ralph’s ear again. “That 
is my idea, my boy. And it is that idea that lias 
brought me to Rockton to-day.” 



CHAPTER V 


ON THE HEELS OF A SHADOW 

Ralph reflected upon the hint Zeph had se¬ 
cured from two section men far down the 
division. The name of Andy McCarrey was 
one to conjure with among a large part of the 
maintenance of way men employed by the Great 
Northern. “Thumbs up” or “Thumbs down” 
might mean exactly what Zeph suggested. 

And the Midnight Flyer—so called, because 
it left Rockton terminal on the jot of midnight 
—was causing the divisional officials enough 
trouble and anxiety in any event. The new 
train should run on a schedule that called for 
the finest kind of human attention. The engi¬ 
neer in charge should be as good a man as there 
was on the division. The two firemen should be 
highly trained specialists in the handling of a 
locomotive’s fuel and water. 

There were but four stops for this flyer be¬ 
tween Rockton and Hammerfest—a four-hour 

run at top speed. The locomotive pulling the 

42 


ON THE HEELS OF A SHADOW 


43 


train, and returning the next day with another 
fast express, was quite equal to the schedule. It ' 
was a new eight-driver, and had come out of 
the Baldwin works keyed up to seventy miles an 
hour on a level track. Of course, it was not 
expected that any engineer could hold the Mid¬ 
night Flyer to that speed for the entire length 
of the run; but even the concessions made be¬ 
cause of the heavy freight traffic over the 
division at night were not sufficient to make the 
run an easy one. 

Byron Marks, one of the grizzled engineers 
on the Great Northern list, was in line for the 
new locomotive and the new run. If the rail¬ 
roads had proper pension lists, the old man should 
have been weeding his garden and drawing 
pension money for the rest of his life. 

However, he was vigorous, keen-sighted, and 
a thoroughly active man. He stood well in the 
Brotherhood and with the officials of the Great 
Northern. When the choice came for engineer 
of the swift express, Marks’ name headed the 
list. He stepped into the job. 

But Ralph had helped to make over the night 
schedule, necessary to squeeze in the varnished 
train. There were stretches of twenty and thirty 
miles that called for perfect running, and at a 
mile a minute, for the Midnight Flyer. A stop 


44 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


signal, even for half a minute, might make the 
train fall behind. Any little accident was likely 
to put her off her speed. 

As a matter of fact, since Byron Marks had 
wheeled her out of the Rockton station a week 
and more before, not once had the Midnight 
Flyer made Hammerfest on time. There was 
a connection to be made there with the Boise 
City & Western that called for the flyer’s being 
on time. If the Great Northern express could 
not keep to its schedule, the train might as well 
be taken off altogether. 

“After what you say, Zeph,” Ralph said so¬ 
berly, as the two friends came out of the Owl 
Lunch wagon, “I am afraid there will not be any 
hoghead envious of By Marks’ run.” 

“You said something,” agreed Zeph. “This 
McCarrey fellow-” 

“Sh! Speak easy of him. Don’t know who 
may be listening.” 

“Just as I thought. He’s the Big Noise 
around here?” 

“He is with the men who are anxious to 
strike. He has no standing with the Brother¬ 
hoods, of course. But you know the general 
feeling among railroaders just now. If the cor¬ 
porations get the dirty end of the stick there 
are not many employees going to weep about it.”' 



ON THE HEELS OF A SHADOW 


45 


“You said something,” repeated Zeph Dallas. 
“Well, has this man whose name we will not 
mention really got all the influence that I thought 
he had?” 

“Among the disgruntled, I am afraid he has,” 
admitted Ralph. 

“Then he’d better be reckoned up—and 
Watched.” 

“You might suggest that to Mr. Adair,” said 
Ralph, in a low voice. 

“That is what I was thinking of doing. But 
3'ou see,” said the eager Zeph, “I wanted to be 
sure that I really had something on the man. 
Even what I heard down the line is mighty 
little evidence.” 

“We’ll admit that. But taken with what I 
know-” 

Ralph proceeded to give his friend a full ac¬ 
count of the incidents of this very day, when 
Whitey Malone had attacked both the super¬ 
visor’s daughter and Ralph himself. 

“That fellow is egged on by McCarrey. I 
know that to be a fact. Mac is addressing meet¬ 
ings in Beeman’s Hall, and circulating a lot of 
literature that ought to be suppressed, and get¬ 
ting ready to deal the road a dirty blow through 
the dissatisfied element. But what can be 
proved against him?” 



46 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“He ought to be run out of the place.” 

“You are suggesting fighting fire with fire,” 
Ralph rejoined, shaking his head. “But I know 
what Mr. Adair will say. He will declare for 
peace at any price until the enemy makes the 
first move.” 

“Hey!” muttered Zeph in Ralph’s ear. “Do 
you know that fellow?” 

They had been walking along the dark street, 
arm in arm. There were few pedestrians in 
sight. This was a busy part of the town in 
daylight, but there was little activity now. 

Ralph stared after the long, shadowy figure 
crossing the cobbled street. There was a pale 
glow of lamplight just where the stranger 
stepped upon the curb. For an instant his flaxen 
hair and red neck were visible. 

“By gracious! I believe that is the fellow I 
told you about,” Ralph exclaimed. 

“Not Mac-?” 

“No! Malone! And I believe he’s drunk. 
He had been drinking this afternoon.” 

“Where could he get liquor around here?” 

“I’m sure I don’t know. But I’d say he got 
it, law or no law.” 

“So that fellow is a friend of the Big Noise?” 

“A tool, anyway, of McCarrey’s.” 

“Wonder where he’s going?” ruminated 



ON THE HEELS OF A SHADOW 


47 

Zeph. “Drunk or sober, he acts as though he 
had something on his mind.” 

“There is another gate in the yard fence in 
that direction,” whispered Ralph. 

“Come on!” urged Zeph Dallas. “I’ve an¬ 
other idea, Ralph.” 

“Aren’t you the little wonder?” chuckled the 
dispatcher. “What now ?” 

“A drunken man often tells the truth when a 
sober man won’t. He likewise is not to be 
trusted with a secret. Alcohol loosens the 
tongue. Let’s get after this Whitey Malone and 
see if we can’t make him tell something about 
McCarrey and his plans.” 

“Go to it, boy,” said Ralph doubtfully. “I’ll 
stay in the background. Whitey has it in for 
me.” 

“Keep in sight just the same,” commanded 
Zeph, taking the lead with promptness. 

Lie darted across the street and was soon 
close on the heels of the shadowy Malone. 
Ralph looked searchingly about the block before 
he ventured to follow the two. It seemed that 
Malone was quite alone. And he staggered on 
without looking back. He did not fear being 
followed. 

The young dispatcher allowed Zeph and 
Malone to get well ahead of him. As long as he 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


could keep Dallas in sight he was satisfied. The 
trail led directly past the gateway in the yard 
fence. They went up into the town, crossing 
the railroad at Hammerby Street where Ralph 
had had his adventure with Cherry Hopkins that 
afternoon. 

Beyond the warehouse that stood here was 
a dark and narrow lane. Under the dim radi¬ 
ance of a single street lamp Ralph saw Zeph 
turn into this alley. Of course, Whitey Malone 
must be in advance. 

Ralph looked around for some weapon before 
he ventured into the lane. Drunk as Whitey 
Malone was. the fellow might have apprehended 
that he was being followed, and might be pre¬ 
pared for an attack. 

“Zeph is as reckless as he can be,” thought 
the young dispatcher. “I’ve seen him get into 
some messes before this. Ah! What’s this?” 

It was a spoke of a wheel lying in the gutter 
—a tough piece of ash as effective in a strong 
hand as a policeman’s nightstick. Ralph 
weighted it, spat on his palm to tighten his grip 
on the club, and then ventured into the dark 
alley. 

He had not gone ten steps when he heard the 
creak of hinges. A door was being opened 
somewhere ahead of him. But he came to a 


ON THE HEELS OF A SHADOW 


49 


sharp corner in the dark alleyway before he 
spied the opening. A faint radiance shone into 
the lane. 

Between him and this open door was a dark 
figure—a stooping figure. He made sure it was 
Zeph. He heard the latter ‘‘hist!” in a low 
tone. He crept forward. 

Somebody stumbled inside the hall to which 
the open door gave entrance. A harsh voice 
called: 

“That you ?” 

“Yes, it’s me,” grumbled another voice, which 
Ralph recognized as belonging to Malone. 

“What are you trying to do—knock the 
house down?” snarled the first speaker. 

“Why don’t you have some more light? 
’Most broke my shins down here, Ouch!” 

“Shut up!” commanded the other person, evi¬ 
dently standing at the head of a flight of stairs. 
“Come up here.” 

Zeph had crept forward. Ralph saw the 
outlines of his figure at the edge of the door¬ 
frame. Ralph had to take his tip from Zeph. 

“Hey!” exclaimed the fault-finding voice 
again. “You’ve left that door open, Malone.” 

Malone’s stumbling footsteps returned down 
the few treads of the stairs he had already 
mounted. The lamplight faded. Ralph realized 


50 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


that the man at the top of the stairs was re¬ 
treating with the lamp in his hand. 

The next moment he realized, too, that Zeph 
had inaugurated one of his perfectly crazy ven¬ 
tures. Instead of cowering back out of sight 
as Whitey Malone came to the open door, Zeph 
huddled close to the opening. When the door 
began to be pushed into place, the young fellow 
leaped to his feet, darted forward, and encircled 
the half-drunken Malone with his arms just be¬ 
low the knees! 

“Squawk!” vented the surprised Malone. He 
crashed down the low, outside steps and landed 
on the flagstones with sufficient force to drive 
the breath from his body. 

“Grab him, Ralph!” hissed Zeph, springing to 
his feet again, and seeing his friend at his back. 
“I’m going up there in his place. If a row 
starts, call the cops.” 

The next instant Zeph was inside the building 
and had softly closed the door. 


CHAPTER VI 


TOUCH AND GO 

Whitey Malone was on his face, and before 
he could raise his head and shriek his objection 
to the treatment accorded him by Zeph Dallas, 
Ralph sprang astride him and held him down. 
As Whitey struggled the young dispatcher 
grabbed his cap from the ground and thrust it 
into the fellow’s mouth. Then he twisted his 
hands behind him and held the muffled rascal 
secure. 

Ralph was about to use his own handkerchief 
to bind Whitey’s wrists when he remembered 
that it w&s monogrammed and might offer a clue 
to his identity when the affair was over. There¬ 
fore he thrust his hand into the side pocket of 
his captive’s coat. 

There was a bandanna there. When Ralph 
pulled it out of the pocket something else came 
with it—something white that lay on the flag¬ 
stone while Ralph lashed Whitey’s wrists. 
When this job was done neatly and to his satis- 

5i 


52 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


faction, the young dispatcher picked up the fallen 
article and rose to his feet. 

Whitey Malone was groaning and struggling. 
His cap completely muffled his voice. He man¬ 
aged to roll over on his back, but he could not 
spit out the cap. 

Ralph looked scrutinizingly at the thing he had 
drawn from the man’s pocket. It was a soiled 
envelope, sealed. It was not bulky and there was 
no address upon it as far as Ralph could see. 
He thrust it into an inner pocket and then turned 
toward the door of the house into which Zeph 
Dallas had so recklessly plunged. 

Zeph had instructed his friend to call the police 
if a row was started upstairs. But Ralph did 
not want to draw the police into any investigation 
of this affair. He did not know yet whether this 
was railroad business or not. And, in any event, 
he was sure that publicity would do no good. 

But he feared for Zeph’s safety. The fellow 
was so reckless! With another glance at the 
prostrate Whitey, the dispatcher sprang up the 
steps and opened the unlocked door. There was 
but a faint glimmer of light in the hall and that 
from the floor above. 

Where was Zeph? Ralph dared not utter a 
sound. He closed the door behind him carefully 
and made sure that it was tightly shut. Then 


TOUCH AND GO 


53 

he began to grope about the lower hall of the 
house. 

He had brought the spoke of a wheel with him, 
and the grip of it gave him confidence. But he 
did not want to pitch upon his friend by mistake. 
He found no trace of Zeph, however. He be¬ 
lieved the fellow must have ventured immedi¬ 
ately up the stairs. 

Above, Ralph heard the murmur of voices. 
He started up the flight, stepping close to the 
wall so that the stair steps would not squeak. 
.This was an old and ramshackle building and 
every beam in it cracked when the wind blew. 

Clinging to the wall, Ralph finally came so 
near the head of the flight that he could see across 
the small hall at the top and into a big room, 
the door of which was more than ajar. This 
loft seemed to be poorly furnished and it cer¬ 
tainly was poorly lighted. 

When the man had come to the top of the 
stairs with the hand lamp, he had brought the 
only lamp in the place. Now it stood upon a 
rickety table near one wall and he and another 
man were seated beside it. 

Surely the second person was not Zeph Dal¬ 
las! And yet Ralph could not see any sign of 
Zeph. He stepped up on the landing with great 
care, and looked into the room. There was ab- 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


54 

solutely nobody there but the pair at the table. 

Suddenly one of these moved his chair— 
scraped it back harshly. He turned to look at * 
the open door. 

“What’s the matter with you, Whitey?” he 
growled out. “Why don’t you come up here? 
Did you get what I sent you for?” 

Ralph held his breath and remained perfectly 
still. He had no thought of answering for 
Whitey Malone. 

But startlingly, though in muffled tone, a gruff 
voice said just above him: “What’s that you 
want? I dunno wot you sent me for. Where’d 
you send me?” 

The fellow at the table jumped up with an 
ejaculation more forceful than polite. “That 
drunken bum! What’s he been doing, do you 
suppose, Grif?” 

“You should not have trusted him, Andy,” re¬ 
turned the second man. “I told you what he 
was.” 

The first speaker strode heavily toward the 
door. Ralph realized that he was about to be 
discovered. And he knew something else, too : 
That was, that his reckless friend, Zeph Dallas, 
was on the next flight above, and had sought to 
imitate Whitey Malone’s voice. 


TOUCH AND GO 


55 

"Nice mess I’m in,” thought the young train 
dispatcher. 

Trie crouched, but gripping the spoke, his only 
weapon. If it came to a fight, he purposed to 
have the best of the argument—and have it quick. 
He was sure he knew who this fellow approaching 
the door was. The other man did not have to 
repeat his name. 

“Whitey! what the dickens is the matter with 
you?” called the man. “You know what I sent 
you for. Didn’t you see Perrin?” 

Ralph started. Perrin was a name he knew 
well. Jim Perrin was an officer of the shop¬ 
men’s union. The union had an agreement with 
the Great Northern which ran well into the next 
year. That was one reason wby the better ele¬ 
ment of union labor on the road would not dis¬ 
cuss a strike at this time. 

But, to Ralph’s mind, Jim Perrin was a sly 
and unfaithful fellow. He had a bad reputation 
in the neighborhood where he lived. He drank 
and gambled and had other habits that were 
inexcusable. 

If there was a secret association between Jim 
Perrin and these men—especially with this fel¬ 
low approaching the door- 

Ralph was thinking of this; but involuntarily 




56 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

his arm went up—the arm, the hand of which 
gripped the spoke of the wheel. He poised the 
club. And just then, as the man’s head was 
thrust out of the doorway like a turtle’s out of 
its shell, that crazy Zeph yelled from above: 

“Hit him, boy! Hit him!” 

It startled Ralph so that he made a fumble 
of it. While he hesitated the man drew back 
his head with a cry of rage, and the next moment 
he produced a pistol and thrust it into the hall! 

He could not have aimed at either of the 
young fellows; but both of them were startled. 
It was touch and go—the bullet might find its 
billet in either of their bodies if the man fired. 

“Who’s there?” he yelled. 

Ralph sprang half way down the stairs. He 
heard Zeph going up the other flight on the 
jump. The man yelled again for his comrade 
to aid him in the chase. 

Before Ralph reached the lower door he heard 
a window smashed above and knew that Zeph 
Dallas had found a fire escape. He tore open 
the outer door of the house and bounded through. 
The faint lamplight from above must have re¬ 
vealed his figure, for Zeph shouted: 

“Out of the way, below! Stand aside!” 

He had come down the fire escape ladder on 
the run. There was no ladder to the ground, of 


TOUCH AND GO 


57 

course, and he swung from the lower platform 
to drop. 

Ralph, hearing the men coming down the 
lower flight of stairs, turned and banged to the 
outer door and held it. The men tried to turn 
the knob, but the young train dispatcher had a 
grip of iron. 

“All right, boy !” shrilled Zeph, as he dropped. 
“Where’s that chap I overturned ?” 

“He’s thrashing on his back there,” said Ralph 
coolly. “Let him alone. Be ready to run.” 

“That’s the thing I’m most ready for,” admit¬ 
ted Zeph. “Come on!” 

Ralph leaped away from the door and fol¬ 
lowed his friend up the alley. They were a 
block away in two minutes, and were not fol¬ 
lowed. Ralph overtook Zeph and dragged him 
down to a walk. 

“Gee!” exclaimed Dallas, “that was a close 

call-” 

“And a silly one,” declared the train dis¬ 
patcher. “Another of the times when you 
jumped without looking. You had no business 
in that house.” 

“Yes, I had. Wasn’t that Andy McCarrey?” 

“It was.” 

“Well, I’ll know him again then. I never saw 
him before.” 



58 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“If that is all you wanted,” said Ralph with 
some scorn, “I could have pointed him out to 
you a dozen times a day. He doesn’t hide him¬ 
self.” 

“Huh! He was hiding away to-night, I 
guess.” 

“Perhaps. But it did you no good to let him 
know that his actions were observed and his 
private messenger followed.” 

“Oh! You mean that Whitey?” 

“That is whom I mean.” 

“I bet he had something on him we ought to 
have got hold of,” said Zeph, with sudden ex¬ 
citement. “Did you hear what McCarrey said? 
And was that Jim Perrin he meant, do you 
suppose?” 

“Like enough,” said Ralph soberly. “I am 
afraid Jim is into this strike scheme with both 
feet.” 

“The union ought to bounce him.” 

“He has a lot of friends. But perhaps if it 
could be proved that he had a secret agreement, 
or understanding, with McCarrey-” 

“Wish we’d searched that Whitey,” growled 
out Zeph, shaking his head mournfully. 

“If you didn’t always jump into a thing with¬ 
out first looking!” exclaimed Ralph. “Well, 
svhere are you stopping ?” 



TOUCH AND GO 


59 


“I’ve got a room on Pearl Street. You know 
the place? But I didn’t think of sleeping to¬ 
night.” 

“And you won’t, after that milk and mince 
pie and the acrobatic activities you have just in¬ 
dulged in,” said Ralph, chuckling. “I’ll go over 
to the room with you. We can talk there. I’ve 
got something to show you.” 

“Huh?” questioned Zeph, curiously. 

In five minutes they reached the poorly fur¬ 
nished rooming-house in which Zeph was usually 
sheltered when he came to Rockton. It seemed 
as though he had a horror of living in good 
quarters, or as ordinarily respectable people 
lived. 

“You surely are foolish, Zeph,” declared 
Ralph. “There’s a good bed and room at your 
disposal at our house. Mother w'as only speak¬ 
ing of it this evening. And yet you prefer a 
ranch like this.” 

“As I told you, I never know what sort of a 
mess I may be getting into. Don’t want to make 
your mother trouble. Couldn’t think of doing 
more than coming to Sunday dinner and eating 
chicken.” 

“That’s a promise,” agreed Ralph, smiling. 
“I’ll order a pair of chickens from the butcher 
in the morning.” 


6o 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“Now, what’s the big idea?” asked Zeph, 
softly, closing his room door after having pulled 
the electric light chain to illuminate the place. 

Ralph looked at him grimly. “Yes,” he 
said, “Whitey had been on an errand for McCar- 
rey, and probably to Jim Perrin’s house. He 
was bringing some message, or the like, from 
Jim.” 

“You’re guessing,” said Zeph. “We ought 
to have searched Whitey, as I said.” 

Ralph drew out the sealed envelope that he 
had taken from Whitey Malone’s pocket with 
his bandanna. He held it out to Zeph. 

“I guess this is what Whitey carried,” he 
said quietly. 

“Gee, you did search him!” exclaimed the 
other happily. “You smart kid!” 

“The luck of fools,” rejoined Ralph, with 
some disdain. “If it is anything of importance 
I can’t accept praise any more than you can.” 

But Zeph was already tearing open the en¬ 
velope. 


CHAPTER VII 


SOMETHING BAD 

Ralph Fairbanks sat down on the edge of 
the narrow bed and watched Zeph open the en¬ 
velope. He had all the curiosity that his 
friend had about the contents of it, but he dis¬ 
played more placidity. Zeph was always as 
eager as a bird dog on the scent. 

“What do you suppose this is?” he murmured, 
drawing out a folded piece of paper. 

“A doctor's prescription?” suggested Ralph 
grimly. 

Zeph gave a look, then uttered a disap¬ 
pointed ejaculation. 

“Shucks! Why, it's only a list of names. 
Not another thing. Four names. Shucks!” 

Ralph held out his hand for the paper and 
Zeph gave it up, his face screwed into an ex¬ 
pression of disappointment. 

“It's a roast for us,” he muttered. 

But Ralph made no comment—at first. He 

read aloud the column of names. 

61 


62 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“Lyons, 

Bertholdt, 

Mike Ranny, 

Peters.” 

“Do you know ’em?” asked Zeph, with some 
curiosity. 

“Perhaps. I know. Mike Ranny. He has a 
brother Bob. Bob takes out Number Eighty- 
two. He is a good engineer. But Mike is a 
shopman. Yes, I guess I can identify him.” 

“And those others?” asked Zeph. 

“Perhaps. But that isn’t the first thing to 
do. Here is a list of names that Whitey was 
carrying to Andy McCarrey. Very secret about 
it. And we are led to believe the list was com¬ 
ing from Jim Perrin.” 

“All right! All right!” returned Zeph im¬ 
patiently. “What’s the answer?” 

“I can find out if Perrin really wrote these 
names down. I'll do so to-morrow first thing. 
Then we may identify the four persons named. 
Just why Lyons, Bertholdt, Peters and Mike 
Ranny are named here to Andy McCarrey, we can 
only surmise. But we may believe that the four 
men belong to the shopmen’s union and Perrin 
has selected them for some certain matter which 
McCarrey wishes put over.” 

Zeph merely nodded his head and humped 


SOMETHING BAD 


63 


his shoulders forward, staring in Ralph’s face. 

“But remember, we are only supposing these 
things. Got to identify the writing of the names 
and the men owning them,” the young dis¬ 
patcher continued. 

“Huh!” exclaimed Zeph. “And even then we 
won’t know anything. Got to wait till some¬ 
thing happens. Gee!” 

“You come to me to-morrow noon and I’ll 
know something,” said Ralph, rising and put¬ 
ting away the paper in his wallet. “And then, 
I think, we’d better get in touch with Mr. Adair.” 

“I’d like to have something to show him,” 
murmured Zeph. “Something good.” 

“You are more likely to have something bad 
to show him,” returned Ralph seriously. “I 
believe, Zeph, that this Andy McCarrey, with 
Jim Perrin to help him, could swing more than 
half of the shopmen in Rockton.” 

“It’s a queer proposition. How does it come 
this McCarrey butts in here? And him not a 
union man, nor even an employee of the Great 
Northern ?” 

“I give it to you straight, Zeph,” sighed 
Ralph, buttoning his coat over the wallet. “I 
believe McCarrey followed the new supervisor 
here.” 

“What!” 


64 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“No ‘what* about it. Mr. Hopkins—the 
G. M. admitted it to me—got into trouble on 
an eastern railroad. This McCarrey had a run-in 
with Barton Hopkins there. As soon as Mr. 
Hopkins took hold here at Rockton as super¬ 
visor of the division, McCarrey appeared.” 

“And then the trouble started?” demanded 
Zeph. 

“You said it. It looks like a personal fight, 
more than anything else, between McCarrey 
and the super.” 

“But why do our men lend themselves so 
easily to the leadership of an outsider like 
McCarrey?” 

“He’s got their number, I guess,” grumbled 
Ralph. “He knows how Mr. Hopkins starts 
friction with the men. ‘Discipline!’ Humph!” 

“He’s a regular red flannel shirt, is he?” 
grumbled Zeph Dallas. “I heard he had every¬ 
body scratching. Has he jumped you yet, 
Ralph?” 

“Not much. And I don’t suppose he’ll try to. 
We get our orders from Mr. Glidden at main 
headquarters.” 

“Well,” remarked Zeph wisely, “I never saw 
one of these wiseacres who try to tell everybody 
their business, who didn’t butt in more or less 
on things that didn’t concern ’em. But, of 


SOMETHING BAD 


65 


course, Mr. Hopkins can talk turkey to the men 
in all other branches of the service on this 
division.” 

“He can and does. And he has got the men 
so sore that they are willing to be led by any¬ 
body who promises to help them get square with 
the super. McCarrey needs only to sit back and 
wait, and things will come his way.” 

“That club you had just now ought to have 
come his way,” sighed Zeph. “Going? Well, 
good-night, Ralph.” 

“Good-night. Better go to bed—if the mince 
pie and milk will let you sleep. And don’t fail 
to show up at the offices to-morrow noon.” 

Ralph went home in a very serious frame of 
mind. His mother was serious, too, the next 
morning, when she found the coat he had worn 
the evening before had a great rent in it and 
two buttons torn off. 

“I never knew it to fail, Ralph,” she said, 
rather sharply for her, “that when Zeph Dallas 
comes around you get into trouble. You have 
been in a fight. Look at that scratch on your 
cheek. What did you do last night?” ./ 

“You are a wonderfully close observer, 
Mother,” said Ralph, laughing. “How is it you 
always see so much?” 

“Indeed?” and she smiled ruefully at him. 


66 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“Why shouldn’t I observe every little thing about 
my son? At least, until some other woman has 
a better right to him.” 

“Goodness me!” complained Ralph, with 
twinkling eyes. “You talk as though I was in 
danger of being kidnapped.” 

“How do I know? There was the young lady 
you were talking of at supper.” 

“And I believe she and her family are going 
to be in more trouble before it is all said and 
done,” muttered Ralph. 

But he got out of explaining in detail about 
his adventure with Zeph Dallas the previous even¬ 
ing. He knew, however, his mother was merely 
in fun about Cherry Hopkins. Secretly, when¬ 
ever Ralph thought of the pretty blonde girl, 
he felt anxiety for her safety. Such rascals as 
Whitey Malone and the other fellows who would 
do Andy McCarrey’s. bidding might really do 
Cherry serious harm. 

He went to the dispatchers’ offices early, saw 
that the day-trick men were getting on all right, 
and then went in search of a timekeeper who, he 
knew, was to be trusted. This gray-haired em¬ 
ployee of the Great Northern was one of those 
loyal men who considered any blow at the road 
a blow at their own livelihood and future pros¬ 
pects. 


SOMETHING BAD 


67 


“Think you could recognize Jim Perrin’s 
writing wherever you saw it, John?” the young 
chief dispatcher asked. 

“Jim Perrin, is it? A bad egg. It is too 
bad he leads so many around by the nose. I 
know his handwriting well. I ought to. He 
has been signing for his pay check for ten years 
here.” 

“Look at this,” said Ralph, thrusting the list 
of four names in front of the timekeeper. 
“What do you think?” 

The man studied the names through his 
spectacles. Then he nodded. 

“I know them, too,” he said. “They are all 
in the shops here. Billy Lyons, Abe Bertholdt, 
Micky Ranny, brother of Bob, the hoghead, and 
Sam Peters. Yes, I know ’em all.” 

“That is not just what I asked you,” Ralph 
explained. “Who do you think wrote those 
names on that paper?” 

“Oh! Oh!” cried the timekeeper. “That’s 
the idea, is it?” He squinted at the four brief 
lines of writing. “Who wrote ’em down for 
you, is it? What is this, Mr. Fairbanks? One 
of the new super’s efficiency tricks, I dunno?” 

“Now, John!” exclaimed Ralph, laughing, “do 
you think I would lend myself to any of his 
nonsense?” 


68 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

He turned around while the timekeeper was 
chuckling and saw Mr. Barton Hopkins stand¬ 
ing behind them in the doorway of the little 
office. The supervisor stared at the young train 
dispatcher with a very grim visage indeed. 
Without doubt he had heard enough to under¬ 
stand thfc meaning of Ralph's reply to the time¬ 
keeper. 

When the supervisor had turned on his heel 
and disappeared, Ralph said to the timekeeper, 
with no shadow of change in his voice: 

“Well? How about it?” 

pThe man fumbled the leaves of a ledger and 
finally compared the writing on the sheet of 
paper with something in the ledger. He 
beckoned Ralph closer. 

“Look there, now, Mr. Fairbanks. D’you 
see where he has signed for his check last week? 
And I could show you a hundred other signa¬ 
tures. There’s the P in Peters and the same 
letter in Perrin. They’re like two peas in a pod, 
ain’t they, now?” 

“I believe you!” 

“The little r’s in Perrin are like the little 
r in Bertholdt and in Peters. D’you see?” 

“I see.” 

“That’s your answer. Jim Perrin wrote 


SOMETHING BAD 69 

them four names with his own fist. I’d swear 
to it.” 

“Thank you, John,” Ralph replied /Soberly. 
“I may have more to say to you about this later. 
Keep it to yourself.” 

“Sure, sir, I’ve the tight lip on me,” said the 
timekeeper. 

Ralph wished, as he went back to his office, 
that he had had “the tight lip” as well. He 
had allowed his tongue to- get him in bad with 
Mr. Barton Hopkins. The supervisor was the 
kind of man that would not easily forget a 
slight. 

“He’ll easily forget that I saved his daughter 
from that gang yesterday,” thought Ralph. 
“But he will remember that I spoke slightingly 
of him to another employee. 

“I told Zeph something bad was likely to be 
the word he sent Mr. Adair. Guess the ‘some¬ 
thing bad’ may be connected with my peace of 
mind. I’m going to be on the lookout from 
now on for Mr. Barton Hopkins to get his gaff 
into me.” 

It came sooner than Ralph really expected. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A CLASH OF AUTHORITY 

When Zeph Dallas showed himself in Ralph’s 
office about noon the latter had several points 
which he could lay before the enthusiastic 
amateur sleuth. 

“But you musn’t go it alone any longer, 
Zeph,” the young train dispatcher said. “There’s 
something going to break soon, and Mr. Adair 
will want to know all you get wise to, and as 
fast as you discover it. What do you suppose 
he sends you roosters out along the line for, 
your health?” 

Zeph grinned. “I know he is combing every 
division for information regarding a possible 
strike. The Great Northern doesn’t want to 
bring in a private detective agency with their 
guards if it can be helped. I know.” 

“All right—you know so much! Listen to 
this,” and Ralph told him of his discovery 
through the aid of the old timekeeper. “And 
now here is this man who was with Andy 
McCarrey last night.” 


7o 


A CLASH OF AUTHORITY 


7 1 


“Who’s that? Whitey Malone? I just saw 
him, sobered up, but with two beautiful black 
eyes.” 

“We never gave him those,” declared Ralph. 
“I bet McCarrey pitched into him for losing 
the list Perrin sent by him. Well, that other 
man I heard McCarrey call ‘Grif’ must be 

Griffin Falk, and he acts as McCarrey’s secre- 

/ 

tary, or right-hand man. Mac is no literary 
character. He can talk, but the words have to 
be put into his mouth. They say Grif writes 
his speeches and handles all his correspondence.” 

“Then we know quite some to tell Mr. Bob 
Adair,” said Zeph, with satisfaction. 

“You are right we do. Here is this list. 
I have written beside Perrin’s writing the full 
names of the four men and what they do in the 
shops and how they stand in the union. They 
will have to be watched from now on. Well, 
it is nothing in my young life. I am going 
to tend to my knitting and keep out of any 
trouble, that’s all.” 

Zeph fairly giggled. “I hear you,” he said. 
“But you won’t be able to sit up in this conning 
tower of yours and calmly watch a ruction 
down below without getting into it, and getting 
in with both feet.” 

“No, no! Nothing like that,” declared Ralph, 


72 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


smiling and shaking his head as his friend de¬ 
parted. 

The young train dispatcher really meant what 
he said. He hated to see things going wrong 
for the division—for the whole Great Northern 
system, in fact. But he had his job, and his 
place in the railroad system, and he did not mean 
to step aside. 

He considered himself quite invulnerable 
where he sat. He was independent of every¬ 
body save his good friend, Glidden, at main 
headquarters. As long as he managed to 
drive through his schedules with some kind of 
regularity, Ralph felt that nobody could actually 
hurt him with the company. 

But not long after luncheon one of the call- 
boys came to the door of his little private of¬ 
fice and said: 

“Mist’ Hopkins wants you, Mist' Fairbanks. 
Just told me. Right now.” 

“Wants me?” queried Ralph, in more sur¬ 
prise than apprehension. “The super?” 

“Yep. Bet you he’s got some new way for 
you to run the trains. Two on the same track, 
mebbe, to save wear on the iron,” and the saucy 
youngster went away, chuckling. 

That is the way the entire force was consider- 



A CLASH OF AUTHORITY 


73 

ing the supervisor. Not even the callboys had 
proper respect for the bothersome official. 

Ralph hesitated a little before responding to 
the request of Mr. Hopkins. Hopkins had 
absolutely no authority over the train dis¬ 
patcher’s department. In fact, the divisional 
officers took orders, to a degree, from the train 
dispatchers. For that department “lapped over” 
onto the main and other divisions of the Great 
Northern. Ralph had to handle trains to and 
from the other divisions of the system. 

So he hesitated about answering the call to 
Mr. Hopkins’ office. Any other man in Hop¬ 
kins’ place would have come to Ralph’s room 
and said his little say, whatever it was. The 
day when a supervisor could call a train dis¬ 
patcher to account was long since past in rail¬ 
roading. 

Ralph looked over what was being done in his 
outer office before descending the flight to the 
supervisor’s room. It was at the busiest time 
of the day and the young chief dispatcher kept 
his eye constantly on what was going on during 
every afternoon. He had his best men on duty 
at night. 

Hopkins was drumming impatiently on his 
desk with a pencil when Ralph entered. The 


74 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


latter secretly wished to tell him that that drum¬ 
ming was “waste energy/’ But the supervisor’s 
face did not encourage any expression of humor. 

“I have been waiting for you, Mr. Fairbanks,” 
he said sharply. 

Ralph wanted to tell him the nearest way to 
get to his office, but he bit it back, and waited. 

“I w*ant to put a proposition before you,” said 
the supervisor. “I have turned my thought 
considerably to the train dispatching on this 
division. It might be greatly improved.” 

At that Ralph straightened up and his lips 
became a grim line. 

“I can refer you to Mr. Glidden at main head¬ 
quarters,” he said bluntly. “He will undoubt¬ 
edly be glad to take up any matter of the kind 
with you. I have no jurisdiction.” 

“Yes, yes! I understand all that,” said the 
supervisor, with a wave of his hand. “But 
you know I have practically a free hand 
here-” 

“I have not been so informed. I still take all 
my orders from Mr. Glidden,” and Ralph spoke 
doggedly. 

“Listen, young man! You are in no position 
to war with me. In my opinion you are quite 
too young for your responsible position, any¬ 
way.” 



A CLASH OF AUTHORITY 


75 


“That can be taken up with the general 
manager if you choose/’ said Ralph, with a sigh, 
turning away. “He gave me the job.” 

“Wait!” exclaimed Hopkins coldly. “You 
are a very smart young man; but you do not 
know everything—not even about your job.” 

“I admit the truth of your last statement, 
anyway,” said Ralph, grinning slightly. “In 
my line there is always something to learn.” 

“Listen to me, then. I can tell you some¬ 
thing. ” 

“Very well, Mr. Hopkins,” said Ralph. “If 
you really have something of importance to say, 
I am here to listen.” 

Ralph was not soothing in his speech. But he 
had heretofore been obliged to assert himself 
over older men in some authority in order to hold 
his position. Supervisor Hopkins was intrud¬ 
ing, and Ralph felt that the matter had to be 
stopped right here and now. 

“You understand, Fairbanks,” said the super¬ 
visor, “that I have not called you down here for 
any picayune matter.” 

“I don’t know what you called me away from 
my duties for,” said Ralph brusquely. “It must 
be important. I am listening.” 

“I do not attempt to order you to do any¬ 
thing.” 


76 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“You seem to expect me to obey your call in 
the very busiest part of the day.” 

“That is along the line of which I wish to 
speak,” said Hopkins composedly. “I think 
you should be much more closely connected with 
your work in the daytime. You have three men 
in your office between seven in the morning and 
seven at night. Now, if you handled the early 
short watch and the late short watch your¬ 
self-” 

“You mean the dog-watches ?” demanded 
Ralph, in surprise. 

“Yes. I mean that you could easily arrange 
your hours so that you could handle the train 
traffic between seven and nine a. m. and five 
and seven p. m. I mean-” 

“What’s this?” demanded Ralph, not only in 
astonishment, but with anger. “You want me 
to come down as early as seven and go away as 
late as seven at night? What sort of hours are 
those?” 

“Remember, I am only suggesting,” said 
Hopkins coldly. “I take it that you have the in¬ 
terest of the Great Northern at heart.” 

“And a little of the interest of Ralph Fair¬ 
banks at heart,” returned the young fellow 
angrily. “Why, what chance would I have for 
any freedom ? I come down at nine now and go 




A CLASH OF AUTHORITY 


77 


away at five. Why should I go back to the key 
during the dog watches?” 

“If you will do so I can show you how you 
may get rid of one operator.” 

“I don’t wish to get rid of one operator. I 
ought really to have another. Let me remind 
you, Mr. Hopkins, the strain on a train dis¬ 
patcher and his assistants, especially under the 
schedules we have to make on this division 
just now, is something fierce! You don’t 
know what you are talking about, Mr. Hop¬ 
kins.” 

“I know exactly what I am talking about, 
young man,” said the supervisor grimly, and 
those eyeglasses of his seemed fairly to sparkle. 
“I am pointing out to you a way in which you 
can save the road one man’s salary-” 

“Tell that to the stockholders—don’t tell it to 
me!” cried Ralph angrily. “If I can find some 
way of making them see at headquarters that I 
need another man, I am going to do so. I know 
what is needed in my department. You don’t. 
Keep your hands off!” 

Hopkins spoke again before the train dis¬ 
patcher reached the door. 

“You would better consider my offer of ad¬ 
vice, Fairbanks,” and his voice was like ice. “I 
give you a chance, first.” 



78 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“To whom will you give the second chance ?” 
demanded Ralph, looking back at him. 

“I shall place my advice before the proper 
authorities. They have hired me to make this 
division efficient in every way. I do not like to 
go over your head-” 

“Don’t let that bother you,” answered Ralph. 
“I shall not hold it against you, Mr. Hopkins, 
if you manage to take your ideas before a special 
meeting of the board. Nobody save John Glid- 
den is going to give me my orders. You may 
as well understand that right now. Good-day!” 

He swung out of the room, closing the door 
with an emphatic bang. He felt a decided 
warmth of satisfaction because of this throw¬ 
ing of his glove at Mr. Hopkins’ feet. Yet he 
thought, too: 

“Well, that does settle me with Miss Cherry. 
1 am persona non grata there for the rest of the 
chapter. Humph! What cheek—what cold, 
brass, gall—that man has!” 



CHAPTER IX 


IT HAPPENS AGAIN 

As soon as he got back to the train dispatchers' 
department Ralph put in a call for main head¬ 
quarters and Mr. John Glidden. After a time 
the switchboard operator called him and Ralph 
went into the booth. 

“How do the schedules go, Ralph?” asked Mr. 
Glidden, after briefly greeting his young friend. 
“I hear you are having trouble.” 

“Trouble enough. That Midnight Flyer is the 
worst thing on our hands just now, however.” 

“Number Two-o-two?” 

“Yes, sir. Two hundred and two. Believe 
me! It’s like crowding a fat man through a 
Pullman ventilator.” 

“Well, what else is the trouble?” 

“As I have told you a dozen times, Mr. Glid¬ 
den, we are short-handed,” 

“I know! I know, boy! But this system is 
having an economical streak and I am afraid I 
cannot squeeze you through another assistant, 
Ralph. Not just now.” 


79 


80 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“It better be now, or it will be too late,” de¬ 
clared Ralph. “This efficiency expert that is 
running things at this terminal is going to get 
to the board and show ’em that I can run this 
office with a cripple and a fifteen year old boy, 
I shouldn’t wonder.” 

“You mean the super?” exclaimed Mr. Glid- 
den. 

“I see you are a good guesser.” 

“Barton Hopkins is the limit!” exclaimed the 
chief dispatcher of the Great Northern. “I had 
no idea he would have the impudence to inter¬ 
fere in our affairs.” 

“I’m telling you. He has just now told me 
how I can work two shifts a day myself and so 
save one man’s salary.” 

“Don’t pay the least attention to him, Ralph!” 
said Mr. Glidden earnestly. 

“Just the same I have an idea that you are 
going to hear from him. And he’ll go higher 
up. He is as persistent as a red ant.” 

“And just about as useful,” growled out Glid¬ 
den over the wire. “And I never did see that 
ants were of much use in spite of all the philoso¬ 
phers. They are just a nuisance when they get 
into the sugar.” 

This made Ralph laugh, and when he hung 
up the telephone receiver he felt better. He 


IT HAPPENS AGAIN 


81 


knew he had a friend at headquarters who would 
do his best to look out for his interests. 

That afternoon, however, he had the sample 
of Mr. Hopkins’ dislike for him that he had ex¬ 
pected. When he left the railroad building and 
walked down South Main Street to do an 
errand for his mother, he saw a little electric 
runabout take the crossing at Hammerby Street 
and turn toward one of the big department 
stores. He knew the car at a glance, for he had 
seen Cherry Hopkins and her mother driving it 
many times. 

The women entered the store and Ralph went 
on about his business. Half an hour later he was 
returning when he spied several young men 
walking ahead of him toward the department 
store into which Mrs. Hopkins and Cherry had 
disappeared. One of these fellows the train dis¬ 
patcher identified as Whitey Malone. 

As the gang lurched along the sidewalk, tak¬ 
ing up more than their share of the way, Ralph 
fell to a slower pace and watched them. Op¬ 
posite the Hopkins car the gang halted. Whitey 
stooped and seemed to be examining the wheels 
on that side. Ralph quickened his pace, for he 
had a feeling that Whitey Malone would do 
almost any mean trick which might hurt any 
of the Hopkins family. 


82 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

In a moment Malone got to his feet and 
started after his friends. A small boy walking 
near Ralph began to giggle. 

“What’s all the joy, kid?” the young dis¬ 
patcher asked curiously. 

“Didn’t you see that?” demanded the young¬ 
ster. 

“I didn’t see anything, I guess,” rejoined the 
puzzled Ralph. 

“That white-headed feller turned a cute trick 
then. Say, they are all doing it! I seen a car 
last night—” 

At that moment Mrs. Hopkins and Cherry 
came out of the store. A clerk followed them 
with bundles. The girl jumped in first and 
started the motor. In half a minute her mother 
and the bundles were likewise stowed away and 
the door of the car slammed. 

Ralph had halted. He did not want to pass 
them again. The boy, giggling still, went along 
to stand and watch the car. Cherry started and 
turned it, heading for the Hammerby Street 
crossing. Ralph noticed that the flagman was 
just coming out of his shack. 

The young dispatcher slipped his watch into 
his palm and looked at it. Number 43 was 
about due—vv&s even now wheeling into the 
mouth of the yard half a mile away. The run- 


IT HAPPENS AGAIN 83 

about would have plenty of time to cross the 
track. 

Then with a sudden intake of breath, the young 
fellow started. He had seen something—evi¬ 
dently the thing the youngster was laughing his 
head off about. The tires on the near side of 
the Hopkins’ car were being deflated. 

“That scoundrel!” exclaimed Ralph. 

He knew instantly what Whitey Malone had 
done. The fellow had loosened the air valves 
and gradually, as the weight of the car pressed 
on the tires, the inflated rubber flattened. Be¬ 
fore the car reached the crossing it was bumping 
on that side, and Ralph saw Cherry slowing 
down and looking out to see what the matter 
was. 

Unfortunately the girl did not stop immedi¬ 
ately. While she was puzzled about the hob¬ 
bling car, she ran on. She was half way 
across the tracks—exactly straddling the in¬ 
bound rails, in fact—when the motor stalled! 

The flagman, who was waiting to drop the 
gates when the supervisor’s car got over, im¬ 
mediately lost his head. He screamed and ran 
toward the car, waving his flag. The thunder 
of the oncoming train grew rapidly, vibrating 
on the air. Ralph leaped away after the auto¬ 
mobile. 



84 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

The flagman, seeing the car stop dead, 
rushed back and dropped the gates! If the girl 
could have got the runabout started again, she 
was shut off from escape. 

“And right on the inbound rails!” gasped 
Ralph. 

He saw the car could not be moved. He did 
not even speak to Cherry as he ran. But he 
grabbed the red flag out of the crossing-man’s 
hand and started up the track, waving it madly. 

It was a straight way for several rods. He 
knew the engineer would soon see him. Yet he 
almost held his breath until he heard the shriek 
of the locomotive whistle as it called for “brakes” 
and knew that the driver had set the compressed 
air as he called the brakemen to their unexpected 
duty. 

The high front of the big machine plowed to¬ 
ward him, looking as though it could not be 
stopped at all! Ralph stepped out from between 
the rails when the pilot was almost upon him. 
hie saw the fireman hanging out of the window 
on his side of the cabin, staring earnestly ahead. 
The runabout seemed doomed. And the two oc¬ 
cupants of the car had not attempted to get out! 

“Great heavens, if she hits it!” murmured the 
young train dispatcher. 

He started on a staggering run back to the 


IT HAPPENS AGAIN 


35 


crossing. He was aware that a crowd was 
gathering, seemingly by magic, on both sides of 
the crossing. From the south appeared a tall 
figure that burst through the narrow opening at 
the end of the gate and started for the endangered 
automobile. 

Fire flew from the brakeshoes of the train and 
the grind and hiss of the iron threatened flat tires 
on more than one wheel. Ralph, the breath sob¬ 
bing in his throat, continued to stumble on over 
the cinder path. 

The tall figure he knew was that of Mr. Bar¬ 
ton Hopkins. The supervisor had chanced to 
come along just in season to see the danger of his 
wife and daughter. 

But Ralph knew well enough that the man— 
no more than Ralph himself—could do nothing 
to aid the victims of this threatened disaster. 


CHAPTER X 


THE NIGHT OF THE STRIKE 

The locomotive stopped—and there was no 
crash such as Ralph had expected. He was only 
a few yards behind the high step of the great 
machine down which the fireman swung him¬ 
self. 

“What’s the matter with those boobs?” de¬ 
manded the latter. “Blocking the road like this 
—huh! Wait till the super gets wise to it. He’s 
got just what it costs to stop a train figgered out 
into cents and mills.” 

Ralph grabbed him by the shoulder and shot 
into his ear: “Muffle down, Haney! That’s the 
super himself there, and it is his wife and girl in 
the car.” 

“Great Glory and Jerusalem!” gasped the fire¬ 
man. “Thanks, Fairbanks. He’ll be as sore as 
a boil over this. And it’s a wonder that we 
didn’t smash the thing to splinters, for our brakes 
don’t work any too well. The old mill ought to 
be in the shops right now.” 

The fireman slipped back to warn the engi- 

86 



THE NIGHT OF THE STRIKE 


87 


neer. Ralph went on to the crossing. Mrs. 
Hopkins and Cherry had now! got out of the 
runabout. The girl was actually keeping the 
woman from falling, the latter was so much over¬ 
come. But Cherry flashed Ralph an illuminating 
look. Her eyes were like stars. 

The supervisor knew exactly what to do in the 
emergency. Already he had ordered the gate 
raised and had beckoned to some idlers to come 
and lift the car. He did not take hold himself, 
but he ordered them what to do. In fact, Ralph 
helped lift the runabout over the tracks and out 
onto Hammerby Street. 

“That will do, men. Thanks,” said Mr. Hop¬ 
kins coldly. He turned to his daughter. “How* 
did it happen? Your wheels are deflated.” 

“I don’t know. I did not understand what 
had happened until we were on the crossing. 
Papa,” Cherry replied. 

“Somebody must have done it when the car 
was standing before the store,” said Mrs. Hop¬ 
kins. 

“Thank you, Ralph Fairbanks!” whispered 
Cherry, suddenly seizing the young fellow’s 
hand. 

Hopkins wheeled and stared coldly at Ralph. 
“Just what has Mr. Fairbanks done to be thanked 
for, Cherry?” the supervisor asked. 


88 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“He stopped the train, Papa,” declared the girl 
firmly. 

“Humph! The engineer stopped the train, to 
be exact,” said her father and then turned to 
haul the pump out from under the car seat. 

Ralph tipped his hat to the ladies and walked 
away. 

“In my opinion, Barton Hopkins is a pretty 
small man,” the train dispatcher thought. “In 
any case, I may as well make up my mind to one 
fact: If he can 'get’ me he will. Pie is as cold¬ 
blooded as a snake. And I guess I would better 
keep away from Miss Cherry, or she will get into 
trouble. 

“Just the same,” he concluded, “she’s a hne 
girl. She could not bear to see the little thing 
I did for them ignored. But, goodness me, 
how the rank and file of the men hate her father!” 

He did not tell his mother this time of the 
happening. He had learned it was better not to 
give the widow, details of any possible danger that 
he stepped into. She only worried the more 
about him when he was out from under her eye. 

The newspapers had begun to talk of the wild¬ 
cat strike extending to this division of the Great 
Northern, and Mrs. Fairbanks read enough about 
it in her favorite evening sheet. Ralph might 


THE NIGHT OF THE STRIKE 89 

have told her a deal more—and much more to 
the purpose—had he chosen to. 

The feeling in the shops was a matter for 
grave discussion among the officials. The older 
employees, and the men in the stronger Brother¬ 
hoods, thought of and talked of little else. If 
the shopmen and maintenance of way men went 
out there was bound to be trouble. 

Most railroad systems keep only one jump 
ahead of disaster in the busy season. Loco¬ 
motives and all other rolling stock have to be 
watched and inspected just as closely and care¬ 
fully as a good family doctor watches his patients. 
A turn in the shops for the great moguls and 
eight-wheelers comes more frequently than the 
public suspects. This averts accidents more 
surely than block-signal systems or perfect train 
dispatching. 

Of late the shopmen had been lax in their 
work, just as the section men had been lax in 
their department. Disgruntled employees of any 
corporation are dangerous. In the railroad 
business they are frightfully so. 

Every evening when the shifts changed in the 
shops and yard, groups of men stood around 
and talked. Sometimes some “soap-box orator” 
made a speech just outside the railroad property. 


9 o 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


The railway police could not disturb these meet¬ 
ings, but they worked with the city police and 
soon had them stopped. 

At once Andy McCarrey and others got up in 
Beeman Hall and shouted about the wrongs of 
the workingman and how the police were gov¬ 
erned by the corporation. 

“Hot air! Hot air!” said John, the old time¬ 
keeper, to Ralph. “Just the same, Jim Perrin 
is doing his dirtiest in the union, too. Mark my 
word, Mr. Fairbanks; there’s something going to 
break—and soon.” 

Ralph, however, went on the even tenor of his 
way and fully believed that whatever happened, 
it would not affect him. He would have liked 
to see Zeph Dallas again or hear from Bob Adair. 

But Zeph had disappeared right after Ralph’s 
last interview with him and, day or night, the 
train dispatcher had seen no sign of the fellow. 
He was so troubled over the night schedules, 
however, that every evening he went downtown 
again after supper. 

“I never knew you to be so particular about 
your dispatching, Ralph,” his mother complained. 
“Do you really expect trouble?” 

“I’ll tell you, Mother,” he said, trying to smile. 
“When we have to crowd the trains so close I 
naturally feel anxiety. I’ve got good men on the 


THE NIGHT OF THE STRIKE 


91 


job. But some night I expect that Midnight 
Flyer or some other important train to stall and 
ball up the entire schedule. 

“These wheat trains clutter up the east-bound 
tracks all night long. We have had two break¬ 
downs within forty-eight hours this week. The 
yard was not cleared of west-bound freight this 
morning until nine o’clock. We’re in a mess!” 

“But they cannot hold you responsible for any 
of the trouble,” his mother declared loyally. 

“I don’t know. The way the super looks at 

me when we meet- Humph! But of course, 

Mother, I feel responsibility. I want the trains 
to get in and out on time. The reports going 
back to main headquarters aren’t encouraging. 
Although Mr. Glidden is mighty nice about it.” 

“He Would be,” declared Mrs. Fairbanks. 
“He understands.” 

Just the same, her confidence did not greatly 
encourage Ralph. The day schedule did not 
much trouble him, but at night it grew worse 
and worse. As he had feared, with the increased 
number of wheat trains trying to get through, 
there being a big movement of grain to Europe 
at this time, most other freight was side-tracked. 
The passenger trains, too, were displaced. 

Two mornings in succession the Midnight 
Flyer got to Hammerfest so late that the Boise 



RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


City connection was lost. Passengers had to 
wait two hours. Yet the train could not be 
started earlier than midnight from Rockton be¬ 
cause the connection from the east could not be 
made. 

“Old Byron Marks is a has-been,'’ the master 
mechanic said to Ralph on one occasion. “But 
what can / do? It is out of my hands. The old 
man can’t make the time, and he knows it. But 
he doesn’t want to fall down on the run, either. 
You know what that would mean.” 

“It would give the super a chance to demand 
his withdrawal,” said Ralph. 

“You bet. And Bart Hopkins is only wait¬ 
ing for that. If he had his way, and if it wasn’t 
for the Brotherhoods, he’d scrap every man with 
gray hair on the division.” 

“Can’t anybody talk with Byron and show him 
how to get out gracefully?” 

“Pie’s as touchy as a hen with a brood of 
chicks. I’d like to send him back to a switch 
engine. We need on that Flyer somebody like 
you, Ralph. Yes, sir, it’s a run that calls for 
young blood!” 

But Ralph raised both hands and gestured him 
away from his desk. “No, no! Tempt me not!” 
he cried. “Haven’t I trouble enough of my own 
right here and now?” 


THE NIGHT OF THE STRIKE 


93 


“But if I have to take Byron off for incom¬ 
petency, and that certainly will kill the old man, 
whom shall I put in his place? Every good man 
is needed. This blamed new eight hour rule— 
well, it’s good in some ways, of course; but it 
makes us short-handed.” 

The official went away grumbling. He, too, 
had his troubles. He had to take his orders 
from the supervisor and some of them were not 
to his taste. 

It is said that only the weight of the last straw 
broke the camel’s back. It needed some partic¬ 
ular event to start the conflagration that promised 
to overwhelm the division, if not the whole 
Great Northern system. It was as small a thing 
as the idea of the change in the style of the men’s 
working caps that Ralph had put before the 
general manager some weeks before. 

A new order was pasted on the shop board one 
evening—an order promulgated by the super¬ 
visor and from his office. It was a notice to the 
effect that the call boys, or others, were not to be 
sent out to the lunch places near the shops to 
purchase lunches for the men who wanted them, 
save in the men’s own time. 

That meant that nobody could send for any¬ 
thing to eat and drink until the whistle blew for 
recess. As the lunch places and delicatessen 


94 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


stores were sure to be crowded at those particu¬ 
lar hours, either all the workmen would have 
to bring cans, or those that did not must wait 
half or three-quarters of an hour before they ate. 

The boys who did these errands for the shop¬ 
men were paid so meagerly that their time cost 
the company but little. It was certainly a 
picayune piece of business. But probably Mr. 
Hopkins had figured it out to his own satisfaction 
that several dollars a year might be saved to the 
Great Northern. 

Somebody read the inconspicuous notice on the 
board soon after the night crew started working 
in the shops. Ralph chanced to be in the train 
dispatchers’ offices when he heard the roar of the 
machinery in the nearest shop subside and finally 
cease entirely. He went to the window and 
looked out. 

“What’s happened, Chief?” asked his assist¬ 
ant, sitting at the telegraph instrument. 

“I can’t make it out. Why! there goes Ben¬ 
son, the stationary engineer. He’s shut down the 
powfer! Why, Johnny, they are crowding out of 
the shop!” 

“Strike!” ejaculated the operator, and opened 
his key. 

“Wait! Let me be sure,” cried Ralph, and 


THE NIGHT OF THE STRIKE 


95 

darted to the door and down the stairs to the 
yard. 

It was only a few rods to the first shop. He 
saw the men, angry and blusterous, crowding out 
of the doors like disturbed ants. He found one 
coherent man whom he knew, and got the story of 
the supervisor’s latest order. 

“Hold on! What are you fellows going to 
do?” Ralph demanded of this man. 

“We’re going to hold a meeting. Beeman’s 
Hall. We’ll stand no more of this blamed fool¬ 
ishness. Anyhow, wfe won’t stand for that cut 
in wages they say is coming. I tell you, Fair¬ 
banks; the whole road is going to the dogs.” 

“And you propose to help it go there, do you?” 
Ralph demanded. 

But he knew it was useless to argue the matter. 
The men were red hot. They were discarding the 
advice and the orders of their own union of¬ 
ficials. Andy McCarrey was about to see his 
cherished plans come to fruition. 


CHAPTER XI 


MORE FRICTION 

Ralph Fairbanks disliked to do it. But it 
seemed that he w’as the first responsible person 
about the railroad building to mark the beginning 
of the wildcat strike of the shopmen. Some¬ 
body had to tell Barton Hopkins, and it seemed 
the duty devolved upon him. 

“The old man will be mighty sore,” said 
Johnny, the operator. “I’d better shoot the news 
to main headquarters, hadn’t I ?” 

“Yes,” replied Ralph, going into the telephone 
booth. 

He asked the operator for Mr. Hopkins’ house 
number. It was not very late in the evening 
and he knew Mr. Hopkins could not have gone to 
bed. But it was several minutes during which 
he heard the indicator buzzing again and again, 
before he received any answer. 

Then it was not the supervisor’s sharp voice 
that said: “Mr. Hopkins’ residence. What is 
jvanted?” 


96 


MORE FRICTION 


97, 

“Oh, my gracious, Miss Cherry! Is that 
you?” asked the young train dispatcher, anx¬ 
iously. 

“Ralph Fairbanks ! What has happened ?” 

In spite of his excitement Ralph noted—and 
was glad 1—that the girl recognized his voice so 
quickly. 

“I am at headquarters, Miss Cherry! Some¬ 
thing has happened that your father should know 
about.” 

“He has gone out. We expect him back any 
moment. Tell me what it is, Mr. Fairbanks!” 

“The men have struck!” 

“What—what made them?” 

“Oh, it was coming. It could not be helped,” 
Ralph hastily assured her. “I don’t know how 
far it will spread. Tell your father as soon as 
you see him, will you, please? I will stay here 
till he comes. Don’t know: Maybe the yard¬ 
men will go out. If they do-” 

He hung up without finishing his sentence. 
Through the glass door of the cabinet he had seen 
one of the call boys rush into the outer office. 

“Hey! Where’s Fairbanks?” the boy de¬ 
manded. “Hey, Mist’ Fairbanks! Dooley wants 
you down the yard.” 

“Dooley? At the switch shanty? What for?” 

“The feller driving the kettle has flew the 




KALFH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

coop!” answered the excited boy. “They are all 
striking!” 

“Not one of the engineers?” gasped Ralph. 

“Aw, that feller’s a new one. He wasn’t long 
on the job. Been talking strike ever since he 
started to work here,” explained the call boy, 
keeping alongside of Ralph as the latter started 
down the wide stairs. “He is a no-good, take it 
from me. Dooley’s near ’bout crazy. He started 
to chase the feller back on the kettle with a 
switchbar, but the man could run too fast. 
Somebody’s got to take the throttle on that kettle 
or there won’t be no more switchin’ done in this 
yard to-night.” 

“Why haven’t you been sent for a substitute?” 
the train dispatcher asked the voluble youth. 

“Ain’t one on the list that ain’t done his eight- 
hour shift and four overtime. All but the crews 
for the regular runs. You wouldn’t expect me 
to go after old By Marks, would you, to drive 
that yard kettle?” 

Ralph laughed shortly. He was very 'well 
aware how short the division was of engineers 
and firemen. The twelve-hour rule, while it was 
a good thing and a needed improvement, had 
disorganized the entire Great Northern crew 
system. The system had never got properly into 
step with the new idea. 


MORE FRICTION 


99 


Just why Dooley should have called him, Ralph 
did not guess at first. Save that he might be the 
only person in authority about the headquarters 
at this hour. Dooley never had shown much 
initiative as yardmaster. But he was a good 
worker. 

He came at the young train dispatcher, swing¬ 
ing his arms and yelling at the top of his voice: 

'‘What do you know about this? These— 
these puppy-dogs! That fried egg that run the 
switcher—-Aw! What’s the use talkin’ ? He’s 
took it on the run. He’d better. I’d have 
knocked his head off if he hadn’t run twice as 
fast as I could with my game leg.” 

“What’s the answer, Dooley? What do you 
suppose I can do for you?” 

“You can handle that kettle. You’ve got 


“What, me?” gasped Ralph. “I’m not an 
engineer any more. You want to ruin my repu¬ 
tation, Dooley?” 

“Stop blitterin’,” scolded the old yardmaster. 
“I know you, Ralph Fairbanks. You are workin’ 
for the Great Northern just as I am. Look at 
the fireboy there, Jimmy. He stuck. But he 
ain’t allowed by the rules to handle the throttle 
that his superior deserted.” 

“And you expect me to break the rules ?” 



IOO 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“You still have your Brotherhood card. I 
know it. You are in good standing. We have 
got to show these mutts that real men don’t throw 
the road down—and cut off their own food 
supply—to run after that crazy Andy McCar- 
rey.” 

“All right. I’m with you, as far as that goes,” 
said Ralph quickly. “But I don’t know about this 
thing you ask me to do. My own job-” 

“You are not on the job now. That I know 
full well,” said the anxious yardmaster. “Do, 
for the love of Mike, Ralph, get aboard that 
dirty little kettle and kick together the cars for 
west-bound Eighty-seven. She’s scheduled to 
leave the yard, as you well know, in twenty-five 
minutes,” and he snapped his big watch back into 
his pocket. 

“What will the super say?” asked Ralph 
weakly. 

The idea was taking hold of him. After all, 
the blood in his veins was the blood of the engine- 
driver! Once an engineer, always an engineer. 
Ralph could not get away from the fact that his 
fingers thrilled—and always would thrill—to 
the touch of the throttle and the Johnson bar. 

Dooley wildly said his say about the super¬ 
visor while he grabbed Ralph’s arm and half 
dragged him over to the steaming switch engine. 



MORE FRICTION 


IOI 


Jimmy, the faithful fireman, stood on the little 
deck. 

“You know Mist’ Fairbanks, Jimmy,” said the 
yardmaster. “He’ll help us out. The saints 
will be good to you, boy, for sticking to the fire- 
shovel and bar. Now, git busy. Here’s the list 
'for Eighty-seven, Ralph. Eve kept the crew 
together. Nagle is captain. Go to it!” 

He hurried away as Ralph slowly climbed 
aboard. The young fellow had no more right 
on the little switcher than an outsider. But the 
situation demanded drastic action. And if Mr. 
Hopkins did not appear to interfere, Ralph 
might help out the old yardmaster in this emer¬ 
gency. 

In a way, too, he was helping himself. If 
Eighty-seven did not get out of the yard some¬ 
where near on time, the train would ball up the 
train dispatcher’s schedule. 

Ralph grabbed the suit of overalls the fire¬ 
man threw him and struggled into them. The 
steam was up and there was plenty of coal in 
the bunker. He tried the water-gauge himself, 
then felt out the various levers and cocks under 
his hand. A lantern was giving him the “high 
sign” down the yard. He opened her up care¬ 
fully and trundled the little engine out on the 
cluttered track. 


102 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

Under the radiance of the fixed bull’s-eye be¬ 
side him, Ralph scrutinized the numbers of the 
cars in the string he was expected to pick up. 
Here were four gondolas loaded with pig-iron 
first on the list. Really, in making up a well- 
balanced freight, these four cars should come 
about the middle of the train, to “stiffen her 
back.” So much weight next the locomotive 
made hard switching and, when the regular engine 
crew took the train for the western pull, they 
certainly would blame the yard crew for making 
it up so clumsily. 

But Ralph saw; that the four gondolas fairly 
“blanked” the remainder of the train—like a 
broken cork in the neck of a bottle. Had there 
been full and plenty of time, he would have 
shunted the heavy cars upon a siding and picked 
them up after laying out about half the cars that 
were on the list the yardmaster had given him. 

Nagle, the conductor of Eighty-seven, ran 
along and boarded the switcher as Ralph dropped 
her down to couple on to the gondolas. Nagle’s 
eyes popped open like a scared cat’s when he saw 
who was handling the switcher’s throttle. 

“Jerusalem! is the G. M. himself going to take 
a hand in this strike, too, I dunno?” he demanded. 

“I shouldn’t winder. I have seen him take to 




MORE FRICTION 


103 

the deck of a mountain hog himself on occasion, 
Nagle,” admitted Ralph. 

“It’s right you are. And more than me is re¬ 
membering that same, Ralph, when these crazy 
loons ask us to go out with them against the 
orders of our Brotherhood chiefs. We’ve worked 
hand in hand with the old G. M. and many an¬ 
other of the brass-collared crew on this road. 
These poor simps that are following McCarrey 
will be sorry enough in the end.” 

“I am glad to hear one man talking sense, 
Nagle,” said Ralph. “Now, how do these cars 
stand ?” 

“Of course, you know 4 , these four you’ve 
grappled are the worst of the lot?” 

“It looks so. And whoever drove them in 
here must have known he was going to make the 
yard crew trouble.” 

“Like enough. There are more soreheads on 
this division at the present time than you can 
shake a stick at! And no wonder. That 
super-” 

“Old stuff! Old stuff, Nagle!” advised Ralph, 
in haste. “Time is flying.” 

“What will you do with these four gondolas?” 

“I am going to throw them onto number four 
switch. They can’t stay there but five minutes, 



104 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

of course, for Number Twenty-eight is due then. 
But if we work smartly we may get half a dozen 
boxes tacked on ahead of the gondolas.’ 5 

“Good boy!” and the conductor swung down 
to the cinder path. 

“Put a couple of huskies on those gondolas. 
They must brake at the right time,” warned 
Ralph. 

The conductor waved his hand. A moment 
later, as Ralph eased the heavy quartette of cars 
into motion, he saw two brakemen climb aboard 
—one at the head and one at the tail of the four. 
He knew that, properly governed by the hand 
brakes, those two brakemen could place the gon¬ 
dolas just right on number four siding. 

It was a short piece of track. It opened at 
the lower end right out onto the eastbound main 
track. The switcher dragged the heavy cars up 
and out into the clear and then “kicked” them off 
onto the short siding. 

The coupling pin was tripped and the switcher 
came to a stop. Ralph leaned far out to watch 
the rolling stock slow down. 

“Looks to me as though that far brakie is 
taking his time winding up,” the fireman shouted. 

“Who is that fellow ? Hi! Make the switch 
on the fly, Jimmy, and we’ll run down-” 

“Here comes Twenty-eight, sir!” said Jimmy 



MORE FRICTION 105 

quickly. “If that fellow hasn’t stopped her in 
the clear-” 

They just then got the high sign from down 
the yard. The long freight then due was steam¬ 
ing in. Ralph had a feeling that all was not 
right with those heavy gondolas. They had been 
stopped, and of course were braked. Yet the 
fellow on the tail-end seemed to have been very 
slow about the work. He was the only person 
who knew whether or not the four cars of pig- 
iron were too near the main track. 

The switcher had to answer the far signal. 
Ralph ran her ahead and then backed onto the 
cross-over and so upon the long siding where he 
was to pick up the next batch of cars. The whistle 
of Twenty-eight’s locomotive suddenly emitted a 
signal. 

“Something’s the matter, boss!” yelled Jimmy, 
swinging himself up to the deck again. 

And on the heels of what he said, and before 
the switcher carried them within sight of the 
tail-end of the four gondolas, there sounded a 
ripping crash that awoke the echoes over half of 
Rockton! On the instant the head end of 
Twenty-eight, save her locomotive, was scattered 
over both main tracks. The yard was blocked! 


/ 



CHAPTER XII 


TREACHERY 

The heavy freight train broke in two. The 
locomotive plowed on for a few rods, and 
stopped. The switcher which Ralph Fairbanks 
was driving stopped just opposite the wreck. 

One glance was all that was necessary to show 
Ralph the cause of the disaster. The four 
heavily laden gondolas had been allowed to run 
a few feet too far. The corner of the gondola 
at the end stuck out over the curve of the switch 
and the first box car on Number Twenty-eight 
had caught upon its steel corner. 

This corner had ripped the sides of two box 
cars open; then the ruined cars had crashed over 
onto the other main track. Two following cars 
had jumped the rails and- 

“A four hour job for the wrecking crew, 
aside from the damage done,” declared Ralph to 
Nagle, when he came running up with Dooley, 
the yardmaster. “Where is the brakie you sent 
to guard that tail-end, Nagle?” 

“Jhe rascal!” yelled the conductor. “He’s 

106 




TREACHERY 


107 


taken it on the run. We haven’t had him on the 
line but a few weeks. It is my opinion there are 
a lot of wabblies got jobs on this division just 
for the chance of hurting the road.” 

“I’ll fix ’em if I catch ’em!” yelled Dooley, 
almost frothing at the mouth he was so wild. 

The whistle was blowing the signal for the 
wrecking crew. All that Ralph could do was to 
go on with his task. As it happened, the wreck 
would not interfere with getting Number Eighty- 
seven out of the yard. 

Tie picked up one bunch after another of the 
cars numbered on his list, while the derrick was 
being brought up to clear the tracks and jack the 
unhorsed cars upon the rails again. Ralph 
knew that his assistant would be much troubled 
by this break in the schedule; but there were cer¬ 
tain routine things to do about it, and that was 
all. Trains would have to be held outside in 
both directions until the main tracks in the yard 
were cleared. 

Not more than twenty minutes late the young 
fellow saw the big mogul backed down to the 
long string of cars and coupled on. The 
switcher was steaming on a side track, waiting 
for the next job. Eighty-seven pulled out of the 
yard safely and soon its parting hoot-too-hoot! 
could be heard beyond the hill. 


ioB RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“Now what?” asked Ralph, as Dooley came 
along with another clip of papers in his hand. 

So much had been going on during the last 
few minutes that he had quite forgotten his own 
schedule. The excited Dooley was about to pass 
him up his list for the next freight when a tall 
figure came striding across the tracks from the 
vicinity of the wreck. 

“Cheese it!” gasped the fireman. “Here comes 
the Great-I-Am.” 

Mr. Barton Hopkins showed in his face about 
as much expression as Ralph had ever seen him 
display. And that expression was one of anger. 

“What is going on here, Yardmaster?” he de¬ 
manded harshly. “Are you ready with your re¬ 
port on that accident yonder?” 

“I don’t know much about it,” said the boss 
doubtfully. “I didn’t see it. Mebbe Mr. Fair¬ 
banks, here-” 

This was shifting the responsibility in good 
truth. At another time Ralph might have been 
angry at Dooley. But he knew that the old man 
was much perturbed. Mr. Hopkins turned his 
scowling visage on the young train dispatcher. 

“What is Mr. Fairbanks doing on that switch 
engine?” asked the supervisor. “I understand 
that he was at fault in this accident. He kicked 
the pig-iron cars too far over the switch.” 



TREACHERY 


109 


“Look here, Mr. Hopkins!” exclaimed Ralph, 
leaning from the window of the little cabin in 
sudden heat. “Who told you any such thing as 
that?” 

“I am so informed. My informant will 
doubtless appear at the proper time—when the 
case is thrashed out in my office.” 

“I’ll have some testimony to bring in, too, at 
that,” said Ralph hotly. “Only I doubt right 
here and now, Mr. Hopkins, your power to take 
me into your office. I am train dispatcher of this 
division-” 

“Stick to your job, then,” put in Mr. Hop¬ 
kins sharply. “I ask you: What are you doing 
on that switch engine?” 

Ralph came down from the deck on the run. 
He tore off the overalls. His face blazed. He 
had to wait a moment to control his voice he was 
so angry. 

“If you think I have stepped in here where I 
have no business, believe me, I can get out,” he 
said. “I had no idea of turning in a time card 
for what I was doing. I helped out because 
I wanted to see things move. Dooley-” 

“Mr. Dooley much overstepped his authority 
when he allowed you to drive that switcher. He 
knew it—and knows it, now.” 

“What in thunder would I have done, Mr. Hop- 




no 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


kins?” broke in the excited yardmaster. “Not 
a man on the list could I call-” 

“It was a matter to put up to your superior.” 

“Well, now!” roared the angry old man, 
“where was you when I needed to start things 
going after that danged striker hopped his job? 
Should I sit down and let the yard go stale and 
all this freight hang fire while I waited to consult 
you, Mr. Hopkins?” 

“That is exactly what you should have done,” 
declared the supervisor in the same decisive way. 

“Great Grief and Jumping Dromedaries!” 
yelled Dooley, and he literally went up into the 
air. “It is no wonder the men are striking. I 
don’t blame ’em! I am on strike myself from this 
moment-” 

He threw the clip of papers into the air, and 
it went hurtling over the nearest line of boxcars. 
His cap he snatched from his head and flung it 
yards away in the other direction. The man was 
for the moment mad! 

“I’m on strike! I’m on strike meself!” he 
bawled. “Me, that’s never gone out with the boys 
no matter what happened, for the last thutty 
years. I’m on strike!” 

“You are mistaken, Dooley,” cut in the icy voice 
of the supervisor. “You have not struck. You 
are discharged. Hand in your time and go. 




TREACHERY 


III 


You are discharged for insubordination and in¬ 
efficiency. I’ll take your keys.” 

“Well,” said Ralph, talking it over later with 
his assistant operator as they were trying to un¬ 
tangle the trains in the yard and those waiting 
on the near-by blocks, “we must hand it to super¬ 
visor Barton Hopkins. He is personally ef¬ 
ficient. He found a day man to take poor 
Dooley’s place, he got a man for the switcher, 
and he dressed down the whole yard crew and 
set them to work again in an hour.” 

“But how long are they going to work?” 
grumbled the operator. “They all act like 
whipped dogs. That isn’t the way to run a 
division.” 

“It is his way of running it. And the G. M. 
says he is suiting the stockholders and directors 
right down to the ground. Oh, the 'railroad 
business is on the toboggan!” 

“Ha ha!” croaked the operator. “You sound 
like these other old stagers. I haven’t been in 
the game so long as you have, Fairbanks, al¬ 
though I am older than you. The pay is good 
and the hours not bad. Believe me! I’ve had 
worse jobs than train dispatching.” 

“Oh, so have I. But I feel at a time like this 
that I’d like to be into the game right, instead of 


112 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

sitting up here overlooking a railroad yard and 
making pin-pricks on a road map.” 

“Going back to the locomotive lever?” 

“Do you know,” said Ralph earnestly and 
softly, “while I was fiddling down there on that 
little old yard engine, I felt right . I wouldn’t 
want my mother to know it, for she always 
worried when I had a run, but I believe I was 
born for the throttle. I’m an engineer, and I 
always will be.” 

The morning paper was full of the strike of the 
shopmen, and the threat was made by McCarrey 
that the yardmen and switchers would be out 
within twenty-four hours. 

“We’re going to stop every wheel from turn 
ing on this division of the Great Northern,” 
the strike leader told the reporters. “And be¬ 
fore we are through, we’ll plug both ends of the 
system so tight that the officials will have to come 
to our terms.” 

“How about the Brotherhoods ?” he was asked. 

“That is bunk,” McCarrey declared. “The 
Brotherhood members are practically all with us. 
They don’t have to strike. We are going to 
strike for them. The roads can’t run trains if 
they have no shop workers or maintenance of way 
men. The engineers and firemen won’t take out 


TREACHERY 


113 

trains after a while when they can’t get repairs 
made or road work kept up or switching done. 
No, sir, we’ve got ’em where we want ’em. 
Watch us.” 

“I guess they ought to be watched, all right,” 
Ralph told his mother at his late breakfast. “I 
wonder what Zeph is doing? I wonder where 
Mr. Adair is?” 

“I should think you wouldn’t worry about 
them,” said the widow. “They have their own 
work. You have yours, Ralph. Please don’t 
get mixed up in this ugly business.” 

“I guess you are quite right, Mother,” he said 
gravely. “I am glad to be in the train dispatch¬ 
ing department. Of course, we are going to 
have a great deal of trouble putting any schedule 
through. But I do not believe the telegraphers 
will go on strike. My men, at least, are faithful.” 

“Faithful to you or to the road?” asked his 
mother. 

“To both, I firmly believe,” said Ralph con¬ 
fidently. “Why, I can’t understand any respon¬ 
sible employee going out for so little cause. Hop¬ 
kins has made them all sore, it is true. But they 
can’t give that as a good reason. And the cut 
in wages was only threatened. The Brother¬ 
hoods took their cut months ago, even if it was 
a bitter pill to swallow. It is mainly such men 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


114 

as McCarrey who really are not even railroad 
men. Why, he never had a job on the Great 
Northern, as I understand/’ 

“Do you actually believe that he followed Mr. 
Hopkins here to make trouble?” 

“I bet he did. But it is Hopkins’ own fault 
if he gives McCarrey a chance to make trouble.” 

Mrs. Fairbanks sighed. “I am sorry for his 
family. You say his daughter is an attractive 
girl, Ralph?” 

“That’s the surest thing you know, Mother,” 
declared Ralph, smiling reflectively. “I had her 
on the wire last evening when I sent word to her 
father that the shopmen had gone out. She has 
a sweet voice.” 

His mother looked at him again in some doubt. 

“I never knew you to be so greatly interested 
in a girl before, Ralph.” 

“I never knew a girl before who was so worth 
while,” he replied. “And there’s no nonsense 
about her. You’ll like her when you know her, 
Mother.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


NEWS FROM SHADOW VALLEY 

This was a day to be remembered in Rockton. 
Ralph passed a parade of the wildcat strikers 
and their sympathizers on his way to the office. 
A good many of the marchers were drunk. 
That was bad, for it showed that somebody was 
furnishing a supply of liquor forbidden under the 
prohibition regime. 

‘‘Eve an idea,” Ralph thought to himself, “that 
McCarrey and Grif Falk have a secret place to 
store liquor in, in that old house where Zeph 
and I had our run-in with them the other night. 
Wish Zeph would show up. Fd like to know 
what he told Mr. Adair about it.” 

He saw; uniformed police at the yard gates 
and standing at the railroad crossing when he got 
downtown. But he observed none of the men 
in plain clothes he knew who belonged to the 
railroad police. Mr. Adair did not believe in 
making a show of force at a time of trouble like 
this, if it could be avoided. 


Ii6 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

Extras of the evening papers soon began toi 
appear on the street. Wild rumors were rife.. 
It was said that the maintenance of way men onf 
other divisions of the Great Northern were about 

» 

a 

to walk out. 

The day shifts of men in the Rockton shops 
had not even come to work. The yard crews, 
who were more closely affiliated with the big 
Brotherhoods, were remaining at work. And 
yet, as Ralph could easily sense, nothing was go¬ 
ing right in the yard or around the offices. 

The clerks in the freight offices had some kind 
of association with McCarrey’s new union, and 
when Ralph had occasion to go down the platform 
he saw these clerks buzzing like mad bees. 

“If the super comes this way these fellows wii!' 
get something in their ears they won’t want to 
hear,” Ralph remarked to one of the platform 
men. “How do you stand, Mandell?” 

“I stand for my bread and butter. Eve al¬ 
ways got my wages regularly and been treated 
decently by the road; at least, until this Hopkins 
came. I’ve been here fifteen years and have seen 
five or six supers come and go. I may be here 
fifteen more and see as many supers in charge. 
If this Hopkins tells me I can’t spit on the plat¬ 
form, well, then, I’ll go spit over the side. Ha! 
Them shopmen last night boiling out of the shop 


NEWS FROM SHADOW VALLEY 


II 7 

because of a simple order like that! They’re a 
bunch of dumb-bells.” 

All the employees did not feel the same way, 
however; and that Ralph right well knew. He 
believed it would not take much more to cause 
the yard workers, the switchmen, the freight 
clerks, and other employees, to desert their jobs. 

He had very little time to give thought to this 
or other general matters. That wreck in the 
yard the night before had balled the service up 
badly. 

The Midnight Flyer had got out ten minutes late 
and Byron Marks had been unable to make up 
even that small handicap in the four hours’ run to 
Hammer fest. There was a protest from the 
general manager about this. It did not touch 
Ralph’s department, of course; but it was sent 
to him in duplicate. He knew that the super¬ 
visor would be red hot. 

When Marks brought his train back that day he 
had managed to make time. Ralph himself had 
kept the tracks clear for him, and the old fellow 
should have been thankful. But Mr. Hopkins 
met the express on the platform as it steamed to 
a stop. 

In that cold voice of his, and with a careful 
selection of words that bit like acid on a man’s 
soul, the supervisor reprimanded the old engineer 


n8 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

before his crew and all the idlers who had 
gathered around. It was an unkind thing to do; 
and yet, there was good reason for the super¬ 
visor’s anger. 

Ralph stood by and listened. The locomotive 
that drew; the flyer and this return train was 
practically new. It was the latest thing in a coal- 
burning, Class-A locomotive. Marks had every 
chance, it would seem, to make the schedule, close 
as it was. Another driver could have done it, 
Ralph was sure. 

The old engineer swung down from the cab 
and allowed one of his firemen to take the 
machine out to the roundhouse. He had his 
lunch-can and coat with him. He stood like a 
whipped dog and took the tongue-lashing the 
supervisor gave to him. Ralph had to go away 
from there. He could not listen to it. Byron 
Marks did not possess a proper sense of his own 
position. 

The young train dispatcher hoped that the old 
man would ask for a substitute for the next 
run. But he appeared at night in season to take 
the big locomotive out of the roundhouse. He 
had one virtue, at least. Stubbornness. 

That day had been an anxious one around 
divisional headquarters. Ralph had gone home 
[for supper as usual; but he had come right down- 


NEWS FROM SHADOW VALLEY 


II 9 

town again. The strikers were holding a con¬ 
tinuous meeting in Beeman Hall and the police 
were in attendance to keep the speakers from 
going too far. It was told Ralph that many 
yardmen, switchmen and section men had at¬ 
tended the meeting and that the small unions of 
railroad workers were all but disorganized. 

One shop was running with a crippled crew. 
The supervisor certainly was efficient himself. 
He could report that the wheels in that shop were 
turning. Ralph saw that Mr. Hopkins was on 
the job this evening. Plainclothes men, belong¬ 
ing to the railroad squad, were on duty about the 
terminal, roundhouse, and yard. 

Every hour or so some part of the planned 
schedule for the trains on the division had to be 
scrapped. Ralph was glad he was on hand this 
evening when these changes had to be made. 
Johnny was a good man, but he was beginning 
to get rattled. And a train dispatcher who loses 
his head endangers everything. 

It was along in the evening and the traffic was 
easing up for a while in the terminal yards when 
a message addressed to “Chief Dispatcher, Rock- 
ton” came over the wire, and Johnny took it off. 

“Shadow Valley,” he said. “That is where 
the Midnight Flyer always loses time. What kind 
of country is that?” 


120 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“A wild place. The Shadow Valley Station 
is at this end; Oxford is at the far end. Some 
fifty miles long. The Midnight Flyer stops at 
both stations. Little but timber towns in between. 
Great tourist country in the summer. Hullo! 
What’s this?” 

“It’s in code, I reckon,” said Johnny, seeing 
Ralph’s puzzled face. “Haven’t you got the key? 
It is aimed at you, all right.” 

Ralph repeated the message aloud: 

“What is Whitey M. doing in Shadow Valley? 
Wake up B. A.—X. Y. Z.” 

“That is as mysterious as a hobo Mulligan,” 
remarked Johnny, grinning. 

“What do you know about that!” muttered 
Ralph, and without explaining to his assistant 
he went to the telephone booth with the telegram 
in his hand. 

He was so well acquainted with the vagaries 
of Zeph Dallas’ mind that he knew at once this 
was his signature. Zeph had just that twist to 
his mind that, if he were sent for a pail of milk, 
he would try to disguise both himself and the 
milk. 

“There must be something doing over there at 
Shadow Valley,” muttered Ralph. “And 'Whitey 



NEWS FROM SHADOW VALLEY 


121 


M.’ means just one person, and one only. I 
haven’t seen that fellow since we had the run-in 
with him that night in the alley. Humph!” 

He called down to the supervisor’s office. If 
Bob Adair was in Rockton, Ralph believed the 
supervisor would know how to reach him. 
Ralph knew that Mr. Hopkins was in the building. 
But he was surprised to hear his voice almost im¬ 
mediately answer the telephone call. 

The young fellow would have been even more 
surprised could he have seen who was with the 
supervisor at this hour. A man in a long dark 
coat and slouch hat had come into the supervisor’s 
office unannounced not many minutes before. 
Mr. Hopkins had evidently been expecting him. 

“Well, what do you find?” asked Hopkins, 
pushing his cigar box toward the visitor and 
lighting a cigar himself. Somehow the super¬ 
visor did not consider the use of tobacco an in¬ 
efficient thing. 

“Nothing to put our finger on as yet, Mr. 
Hopkins,” was the reply. “Of course we might 
arrest McCarrey and his right-hand man, Falk. 
But we should have to let them go again for 
lack of holding evidence. There was a time— 
during the war—when we could have stopped 
them. But not now. Now a man can fire off his 
mouth about as much as he likes wjthout getting 



122 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


into trouble. These fellows aim their talk at the 
railroad, not at the Government.” 

“You should be able to get them on some 
count/’ declared Hopkins, smoking energetically. 
“McCarrey is stirring up the strikers to make 
trouble. I have had a written threat that the ex¬ 
press passenger trains will be stopped. You know 
w 7 hat that would mean.” 

“All bull,” said the other shortly. 

“Perhaps. And perhaps not. I was hooted 
at by a gang as I came downtown to-night. They 
will soon begin to throw missiles and break win¬ 
dows.” 

“Then we will have them, individually,” said 
the visitor, with some satisfaction. 

“Ha!” grumbled Mr. Hopkins. “Somebody 
lights a fire and you retrieve the burned match. 
But you don’t stop the fire. The fellows you 
arrest for throwing stones—or cabbages—will 
not be the dangerous ones. McCarrey and Falk 
and those others go scot-free.” 

“They are too sharp to really break the law— 
unless it is with their mouths,” the other admitted. 

“You should be able to round up the whole 
gang of trouble-instigators and put them in jail.” 

“You expect the impossible.” 

“I do not know that. You have only just now 
come to Rockton-■” 



NEWS FROM SHADOW VALLEY 


123 


“I have had my men here. One of my helpers 
spotted that hide-out I tell you about—with the 
help of young Ralph Fairbanks.” 

"Ha! That fellow ?” 

"The smartest boy working for the Great 
Northern," declared the visitor promptly. "That 
old ranch McCarrey and his men hang out in is a 
storehouse for liquors, I believe—and perhaps 
worse. I am having the place watched. But 
one of McCarrey’s closest friends has disappeared. 
Would certainly like to know what has become 
of Whitey Malone." 

It was just at this moment that the supervisor’s 
telephone rang. At this hour there were no clerks 
to answer the call. Mr. Hopkins excused him¬ 
self and went into the booth and closed the door. 

When he came out he was red with anger and 
his pale blue eyes flashed. His visitor appeared 
to overlook the supervisor’s disturbance. He 
said: 

"This Whitey Malone has been McCarrey’s 
messenger and dirt-carrier. From the moment 
the shopmen struck, Whitey disappeared, so they 
tell me. I am going to send out a general order 
to apprehend the fellow wherever he is found. 
We will risk a little something. I understand he 
is really on probation and the magistrate might 
send him to jail if he appears not to be working." 


124 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


The supervisor evidently had his own matters 
to think of. He did not even grunt. 

“I wonder if Ralph Fairbanks knows anything 
about Whitey,” considered Hopkins’ visitor aloud, 
and slyly watching the supervisor. 

The question finally brought the latter to life. 
He flushed up to his bald brow. 

“That fellow? He is perfectly useless. I 
will put a flea into the directors’ ears about him,” 
Hopkins snarled, with unusual show of his feel¬ 
ings. 

The other got up, lazily stretched himself and 
nodded. “Just so. Matter of opinion, Mr. Hop¬ 
kins,” he said. “Some of us think quite well of 
Ralph. You see, we have known him since he 
was a kid-hostler about the roundhouse. Good¬ 
night.” 

“Good-night,” returned Barton Hopkins 
shortly. 


CHAPTER XIV 


A TRAGEDY 

There was a fight down by one of the stockade 
gates not long after Ralph telephoned to Mr. 
Hopkins to learn if the supervisor knew any¬ 
thing about Bob Adair. It might as well be said 
that the young train dispatcher got no satis¬ 
faction from Barton Hopkins, 

“I am not giving information of railroad af¬ 
fairs to anybody, Fairbanks, and you should 
know that,” the supervisor had said shortly. “If 
the chief detective wishes to interview you, he 
doubtless will know how to find you.” 

“But I’ve got some information for him!” 
ejaculated Ralph. 

Mr. Hopkins hung up without further reply. 
He evidently considered it sheer impudence for 
the train dispatcher to have called him. It was 
within the next ten minutes that the row started 
at the yard gate. 

Ralph grabbed his cap and ran down to see 
what it was all about. The time was verging 
toward midnight. Freight trains had been made 

125 


126 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

up as usual and sent out. But outside the railroad 
property a crowd had been gathering, and the 
yard crews were hooted and threatened. 

The train dispatcher was too late to take any 
part in the fight. But he learned that the attack 
had been made upon several of the members of 
the night train crews that were coming in by this 
gate because it was nearest to the roundhouse. 

The police had charged and aided the railroad 
men in driving back the strike sympathizers. 
Missiles had been thrown and one of the men at¬ 
tacked had had his coat tom off. When Ralph 
got close to this man he saw that it was old 
Byron Marks, engineer of the fast express. 

“For pity’s sake, By!” he demanded, as he 
aided the old engineer away from the center of 
the melee, “why didn’t you come around the other 
way?” 

“I didn’t want to see that blamed supervisor 
again,” gasped the engineer, wiping the blood 
from his scratched face. Then he held a hand 
tightly upon his heart as though to still it. He 
was very pale, save for crimson spots beneath 
his cheekbones. “I’d rather fight these rats than 
talk to Hopkins.” 

“Be a man!” exclaimed Ralph. “Don’t let 
that man scare you.” 

“He’s no easy man to meet,” returned the old 


A TRAGEDY 


127 

engineer. “He can put the gaff into you, if he 
likes.” 

“The Brotherhood is behind you. Tell him 
where he gets off. The road is short of engineers. 
He won’t dare tie the can to you. You know 
that.” 

“Don’t talk! Don’t talk, Ralph!” whispered 
the engineer. “I know what is threatening me 
better than you do. I’m growing old. And 
I can’t afford to drop out on a pittance.” 

“Why, you must have something, Byron,” 
said the train dispatcher. “After all these years 
at a good wage- 

“Nothing. Just a little home. And that 
mortgaged. Sickness in the family and an in¬ 
valid child has taken all I could make. Death 
in a wreck, or the like, is the only good thing 
that could come to me.” 

“My gracious! Don’t talk like that.” 

“It is true. I carry a big accident policy. If 
I’m killed my family is well fixed. If I get 
canned, we’ll starve. That’s about the size of 
it,” and the old man walked away, leaving Ralph 
with a lump in his throat. 

“And I’ve been blaming this old fellow for 
not pulling out and letting some younger man 
have his run,” thought the young train dispatcher 
bitterly. “We never know! Old Byron de- 



128 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


serves pity, not blame. A long life gone, and 
nothing much to show for it. Well!” 

The rabble was driven back and broken up 
by the police. Two or three rioters were 
arrested. And that, as Ralph knew, did more 
harm than good. Every strike sympathizer that 
was arrested made a whole family sore at the 
railroad. The strikers themselves were sharp 
enough to keep away from the scene of trouble. 

The big eight-wheeler was being rolled out of 

the roundhouse as Ralph turned back toward the 

€> 

brick station. He saw By Marks, his face washed 
of blood, and now in a clean overall suit, sitting 
on the bench in the driver’s side of the cabin, 
as the huge locomotive wheeled across the turn¬ 
table. 

“Good luck to you, old man!” cried Ralph, 
and waved his hand to the grave-faced engineer. 

Afterward Ralph w'as glad he had given Byron 
this hail. The long train of varnished cars Had 
been standing under the train shed for half an 
hour. The train on the other road rolled in 
at the far end of the station and the passengers 
piled out and joined those already occupying 
their staterooms or berths in the coaches of the 
Midnight Flyer. 

Suddenly Ralph was halted. A hand had fallen 


A TRAGEDY 


129 


heavily on his shoulder and he turned swiftly 
to look at the person who had touched him. It 
was the tall man in the long black coat who had 
been sitting in the office of the supervisor. 
Ralph cried out with satisfaction. 

“Mr. Adair! I certainly am glad to see you!” 

“I was looking for you, Ralph. But I sup¬ 
posed you were at home at this hour and I hated 
to disturb your mother,” said the chief detective 
of the Great Northern system. 

“Oh, no. I am around the offices now, every 
night. Until this Midnight Flyer pulls out, at 
least.” 

“I don’t suppose the supervisor knows that, 
does he?” asked Adair dryly. 

“He know,s it to-night, anyway,” said Ralph, 
grimly. “I was just asking him for you—or i£ 
he knew where you were.” 

“Indeed? And he said he didn’t know?” 

“He gave me to understand that he was not 
giving out information to underlings,” and Ralph 
laughed shortly. “Oh, well! let that pass. I had 
something to show you, and here it is.” 

He hauled out the strange message that he be¬ 
lieved had come from Zeph Dallas. Mr. Adair 
read it swiftly. 

“That’s just the thing I wanted to know!” 


1 3 o RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

he exclaimed. “Hang that Hopkins, anyway! 
He takes himself as altogether too important. 
Why, Malone is the man I am after!” 

“You don’t really think that poor, half-witted 
fellow can be of real importance in any conspiracy 
against the road?” asked Ralph, wonderingly. 

“He has got wit enough to give evidence in 
court. And he is the sort to turn state’s evidence 
if he is cornered. The use of such fellows as 
Malone by men of the calibre of McCarrey is our 
main chance in bringing the latter to book. 

“McCarrey has to engage Whitey Malone and 
others like him to do his dirty work. He has 
some plan against the division that Malone is to 
help put through. If the latter is down there at 
Shadow Valley, as Zeph intimates, I am going 
to make that neighborhood the main point of my 
investigation.” 

“But the strikers are here in Rockton!” cried 
Ralph. 

“Foolish as these shopmen and the other 
strikers are, I would not accuse any of them of 
being angry enough to commit an overt act against 
the road. Especially of the nature of train 
wrecking.” 

“I should hope not!” gasped Ralph. 

“Yet we have received written threats to that 
effect,” said Adair gloomily. “This very train,” 


A TRAGEDY 


13 * 

and he nodded toward the long line of Pullmans 
standing beside the platform waiting for the 
locomotive to back down, “is on the list of those 
that somebody has threatened to stop.” 

“The Midnight Flyer?” 

“Yes. Here comes the old mill. Wait. By 
Marks is not the fellow for this job, Ralph,” 
and the detective shook his head. 

“He’s all right!” exclaimed the young train dis¬ 
patcher hastily. He was determined to commend 
the aged engineer after this, not criticize him. 
“I know that nobody could take that express 
through to Hammerfest much better than he 
does. And I am the fellow who makes the 
schedule.” 

“Indeed?” rejoined his friend, with a curious 
look at Ralph. “Suppose you were pulling this 
train ?” 

“Humph! Think I would be any better than 
an experienced old engineer like By? What 
nonsense, Mr. Adair!” 

But the latter only laughed. They were at 
the head of the train. There was a little group 
of station employees and others on the platform.. 
Ralph was watching the slowly backing locomo¬ 
tive. He saw the pallid face of Marks thrust 
out of the window as the great machine backed 
against the head coach. The red spots in Mark’s 


132 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

cheeks, Ralph thought, were slowly fading out. 

The couplings came together with a crunch of 
steel. The locomotive was stopped on the in¬ 
stant—a pretty connection. Nobody but a skilled 
operative could have done it. 

‘‘He’s all right, old as he is!” muttered Ralph, 
as the two firemen leaped down to make the air- 
hose and water-hose connections on either side 
of the tender. 

The train dispatcher walked forward on the 
engineer’s side of the cab. He looked up again 
at the old man in the window. Then he cried 
out and leaped up the steps to the locomotive’s 
deck. 

Byron Marks’ head had fallen upon the win¬ 
dow sill. His eyes were still staring, wide open. 
But the color had now entirely receded from his 
cheeks. When Ralph put a tentative hand upon 
the old man’s shoulder the torso of his body 
wabbled dreadfully. 

The hand on the throttle relaxed and fell. At 
the instant the engineer had made the nicely 
balanced coupling, he had lost consciousness! 


CHAPTER XV 


ONCE MORE ON THE RAILS 

♦ 

The doctor, who had been brought from just 
across the street from the station, pronounced 
it “heart.’' Either over-excitement or over¬ 
work. It was no accident; just a death from 
natural causes. 

Then, thought Ralph, how about the big acci¬ 
dent policy Byron Marks had carried and paid 
on all these years? 

But at just this moment there were other 
matters of importance to think of. Supervisor 
Hopkins had at once bustled out to see what had 
happened. In five minutes the Midnight Flyer 
was scheduled to pull out of the Rockton terminal. 

“Here, boy!” he said, grabbing one of the 
youngsters who called the crews from their 
boarding houses. “Let’s see your list. What! 
Nothing but freight crews?” 

“And there ain’t one of ’em but has put in 
twelve hours and has got to take his eight hours’ 
sleep,” said the boy. “They’d half kill me if I 
tried to pry ’em out of the hay.” 

133 


I 3 4 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“Wait until your advice is called for, boy,” re¬ 
sponded Mr. Hopkins shortly. 

The boy winked behind the supervisor’s back 
and some of the bystanders chuckled. The super¬ 
visor pored over the list. 

“Not a passenger engine crew free until two- 
thirty.” 

“And then,” pointed out the night station 
master, who had likewise appeared, “that crew 
must take out Number Fourteen.” 

“I want none of your advice, Cummings,” 
snapped the supervisor. 

But Cummings was a gray-haired official and 
not easily browbeaten. 

“You’d better listen to somebody, Mr. Hop¬ 
kins,” he said doggedly. “I know the boys on 
the list quite as well as you do—perhaps better, 
considerin’ I’ve seen many of them growin’ up in 
the road’s employ. There’s freight engineers, 
and there’s passenger engineers. Many an engi¬ 
neer tries pulling the varnished cars and is glad 
to drop back into an easy-going freight run. 
Though there is little on the division that is really 
easy-going now.” 

“Well, well?” said Hopkins, impatiently. 

Cummings raised his eyebrows and glanced 
from Bob Adair to Ralph. 

“There’s not a man on that list as well able to 


ONCE MORE ON THE RAILS 


135 


pull Number Two-o-two as old By was, God rest 
him! And he couldn’t make the grade, as the 
saying is. This Midnight Flyer is a disgrace to 
the division!” 

“What do you mean?” demanded the super¬ 
visor angrily. 

“Just what I say. It is a disgrace. It doesn’t 
keep to schedule half the time. It is the laughing¬ 
stock on the system. You know it. Somebody 
has got to sit on that bench that can get better 
time out of the mill than ever it has made yet.” 

“Well, we cannot think of that now. We have 
to send out the train. The engineer that can 
show* a card—any engineer—is the one we want, 
and must have.” 

tie wheeled as though to hurry away on his 
quest. Cummings tapped him with a finger on 
the shoulder. 

“Wait, Mr. Hopkins,” he said. 

“What is it?” snapped the supervisor. 

“You’re going right away from about the only 
fellow that can help you out,” Cummings said 
with some complacency. “Don’t you see this boy 
here?” and he clapped a jovial hand upon Ralph’s 
shoulder. 

“Oh, I say!” exclaimed the young train dis¬ 
patcher. “None of that, Mr. Cummings. I am 
not looking for any more trouble.” 


136 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

But the old station master waved an airy 
hand. He held Barton Hopkins’ attention. 

‘‘I know that Ralph is in good standing with 
the Brotherhood. He is the best little engineman 
there is on the division. If there is a man to¬ 
night can take this train through to Hammerfest 
anywhere near on time, it is him. The road is 
like a book to him- 

“Ah! what’s the matter with you, boy?” he 
added, turning to face the young fellow. “What 
are you—a man, or a monkey, I want to know? 
What does it matter what people say or think? 
You are working for the Great Northern and 
you’ve got the good of the road at heart. Isn’t 
that so?” 

“You know it!” exclaimed Ralph, half angrily. 

“All right. Here is *the supervisor. He 
wants the best man he can get for the job be¬ 
cause he is all for the road’s interest-” 

“I do not know that Fairbanks is fit for any 
such task,” put in Mr. Hopkins, in his very coldest 
tone. “I doubt if one so young is fit for any 
important and responsible position. At least, I 
am very sure that his exhibition of engine driv¬ 
ing in the yard here the other evening does not 
bear out the ability you claim for him, Cum¬ 
mings.” 




ONCE MORE ON THE RAILS 


137 

“What’s that?” demanded the station master, 
angrily. 

“I have felt it my duty to send in, attached to 
the report of that wreck in the yard the other 
evening, the fact that all rules of the road were 
violated by Mr. Fairbanks in trying to handle 
the switch engine; and, as well, that in my opin¬ 
ion the wreck would not have occurred had it 
not been for Fairbanks’ oversight. He shunted 
those heavily loaded gondolas too far into the 
switch-” 

“Nothing of the kind!” exclaimed Ralph, in¬ 
terrupting, in anything but a respectful tone. 
“The train crews and yard crews are honey¬ 
combed with treachery, and you daren’t accuse 
me of such a thing. I won’t stand for that, Mr. 
Hopkins, and don’t you think it!” 

“Hold on! FI old on!” admonished Mr. Adair 
in his ear. 

“Now, this is too much!” cried the young 
train dispatcher. “I would not help him out 
now at any price. Why, unless the G. M. him¬ 
self told me to take the throttle on that old mill, 
I wouldn’t touch it!” 

He swung on his heel, panting in his anger, 
and ran right against a bulky figure in an ulster, 
his hat brim drawn down over his eyes. Ralph re- 




138 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

coiled with a surprised grunt. The man grabbed 
him. 

“Hold on!” he said. “I heard you. That 
train has got to pull out in two minutes. I order 
you, Fairbanks, to get up into the cab and make 
that engine behave. You’ve made the schedule. 
Let’s see if you can make the Midnight Flyer 
conform to it. Howl’s that?” 

Mr. Adair broke into a hearty laugh. But 
neither the station master nor Ralph, and surely 
not the supervisor of the division, had previously 
any idea of the general manager’s presence at 
the terminal. He had stood back and listened 
to all that had been said since the unfortunate 
old engineer had been carried out of the station. 

“You take this matter entirely out of my 
hands, sir?” Hopkins asked, his voice shaking. 

“I do,” rejoined the general manager. 

“I think you overlook the fact that you are 
interfering in my province.” 

“No, I don’t overlook it. But you come 
back to the office with me, Hopkins, and I believe 
I can show you where it is for the road’s in¬ 
terest to send Ralph out with this train. There’s 
the gong!” 

“Send word to my mother!” cried Ralph to 
Adair, and made a flying leap for the locomotive 
steps. The two firemen, who had listened in 


ONCE MORE ON THE RAILS 


139 


no little interest and anxiety to the foregoing con¬ 
versation, sprang to their proper positions. 
They grinned for they both knew Ralph and 
liked him. 

It was a fact that there was not a locomotive 
on the division that the train dispatcher had not 
tried out at one time or another. As he had 
confessed he was, after all, an engineer by in¬ 
stinct. He slid into the seat so recently occupied 
by the dead engineer, and his hand closed on the 
throttle. 

The exhaust coughed through the smoke¬ 
stack. The bell jangled. He let the steam into 
the cylinders. The drivers groaned and rolled 
almost on the instant of the conductor shouting 
his second “All aboard!” 

As smooth as silk, the train rolled out of the 
station. Adair and Cummings waved their 
hands to the young fellow on whom an important 
duty had again devolved. He opened the throttle 
up wider. The wheels began to drum over the 
rail joints in a tune that thrilled his blood. 

“Once again on the rails!” he breathed. “This 
is the life!” 


CHAPTER XVI 


THROUGH SHADOW VALLEY 

Hoo! Too-hoo-hoo! 

The man on the other bench pulled the whistle 
cord for each crossing and station, but the huge 
eight-driver engine and its long tail of varnished 
cars sped past the switch targets and the station 
lights with no decrease of speed. 

The other fireman sprayed the coal into the 
firebox door, keeping an even bed of living em¬ 
bers from which the lambent flames sprang like 
live tongues. Occasionally Ralph stepped back 
upon the deck to look over the fireman’s shoulder 
into the hot maw of the box. 

The two firemen changed places every hour. 
And Ralph did not wonder at this. When he 
had served his time with the shovel and bar it 
was on no such mighty machine as this that drew 
the Midnight Flyer. The mountain climbers and 
moguls had been big enough in those days. But 
this was even a more powerful locomotive than 
the oil-burners, of which the Great Northern 
owned several. 

*40 


THROUGH SHADOW VALLEY 


141 

One man could never have fed the furnace of 
this engine for four hours—the length of the run. 
They had to spell each other. The attempt to 
make the schedule across the country from Rock- 
ton to Hammerfest was no small job! 

The minute he had got the long train out of 
the Rockton yard, Ralph had set his mind to the 
work of arriving at Hammerfest on time. After 
all, a good locomotive engineer pulls his train 
with his head more than by any bodily exertion. 

Sitting on the bench with the throttle within 
easy touch, Ralph for the most part gazed ahead 
at the rails glimmering under the white radiance 
of the headlight. It was true that he knew al¬ 
most every foot of this road as a boy knows his 
own back yard. 

Here, he remembered, was a level with a 
sharp curve at the end. He took three quarters 
of the straight stretch at top speed; then he shut 
off the steam and went around the sudden curve 
so easily that few of the passengers, unless they 
were awake, would know anything about it. 

For not only does the engineer of a fast and 
expensive train have to make time, but he must 
run the train so well and with such precision as 
to make a reputation for the road and the train 
which will bring passengers back over the route. 

On the mild grades Ralph could use the steam 


142 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

so skillfully that the speedometer registered the 
same speed as on the levels. Nor had his fire¬ 
men anything to complain of. 

“We got to hand it to you, Boss,” said one of 
the firemen, as Ralph slowed to a stop at Shadow 
Valley Station. “You don’t waste the precious 
steam. But poor old By was a hog for it, going 
up a grade.” 

This point was a big summer resort place and 
had several hotels. There was a junction here, 
too, with a small line, and a Y. Of course, at 
this hour of the night the station was practically 
empty save for the station workers and the few 
people who wished to board the Flyer. 

The workers, however, were increased in num¬ 
ber by men whom Ralph, looking out of the cab 
window, marked as Mr. Adair’s operatives. Each 
important station along the entire division was 
now guarded by railroad detectives. Ralph 
hoped he might see his friend, Zeph Dallas. The 
latter’s queer telegram had been sent from this 
station. But he observed nobody who looked at 
all like the tall and gawky Zeph. 

He got the conductor’s sign and rolled out of 
the Shadow Valley Station exactly on the dot of 
the scheduled time. That alone was an achieve¬ 
ment, although Ralph well knew that the hardest 
part of the run was ahead. 


THROUGH SHADOW VALLEY 


M3 


“Gee, Boss!” joked one of his crew, “I bet if 
you’d known you were going to hold the lever 
on this old mill you would have given us a little 
more time between here and Oxford, eh?” 

Ralph laughed good-naturedly. It was true 
the cook had to drink his own broth. But when 
making up the schedule in the Rockton train dis¬ 
patcher’s office, the young fellow had been con¬ 
fident that under ordinary conditions the Mid¬ 
night Flyer should hit the stopping point on the 
nick of time. Provided, of course, west-bound 
freight kept off the express train’s time. 

Through Shadow Valley there were several 
places where the going was hard. Ralph knew 
this quite well. But he had got the “feel” of the 
big eight-wheeler now and he believed that it 
could show even greater speed than it had ever 
recorded. 

When they pulled out of the station he did not 
let the train merely coast down the first grade. 
He opened her throttle wide and she began to rock 
gently on the perfectly ballasted rails. The fire¬ 
men began to exchange glances—they could not 
exchange speech at this speed—and realized that 
poor old Byron Marks had never got such speed 
out of the engine. 

Ralph, of course, was taking a chance. The 
grade really called for brakes; but this was no 


144 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


ordinary situation. He realized that if he was 
to make time at all, anywhere within the next 
fifty miles, it must be right here. 

“Shadow Valley.” Well named by some old 
pioneer with a poetic slant to his brain. When the 
moon shone the black reflections of cliffs and trees 
lay across the right of way of the railroad like 
blankets of black velvet. 

The locomotive headlight cut these shadows 
like the stroke of a scimitar. Yard by yard the 
clear-way was revealed to the engineer as the 
train plunged down the slope. He was taking a 
chance—a big chance—Ralph knew, in opening 
the engine up in this wa}^. Especially now that 
there had been threats made against the road by 
the strikers and their sympathizers. 

All those people in the coaches behind him— 
most of them peacefully sleeping—stirred the 
young fellow’s thought. He had pulled a Class- 
A passenger'train before this night—many times, 
in fact—and had felt something of the same op¬ 
pression of responsibility; but this case seemed 
particularly important. 

Thick forest hid the bottom of the valley. 
When he glanced down he could see the pale moon 
silvering the tops of the firs and larches. The 
express seemed plunging into a vast and bottom¬ 
less pool of black water. 


THROUGH SHADOW VALLEY 


145 


He began to pull down for the curve at the 
bottom of the grade. This was always a danger¬ 
ous point. Once, years before, Ralph had seen 
the wreck of the head-end of a freight piled up 
at the foot of this cliff, which overhung the right- 
of-way. 

Since that time the engineers of the Great 
Northern had broken off the granite overhang of 
the cliff above this spot and had seemingly made 
a repetition of that accident impossible. 

Yet an enemy of the road might place some ob¬ 
struction on the track just below the curve. 
Until the head of the locomotive was right at the 
turn, Ralph could not see what was ahead. 

The road should have kept a signalman at this 
point, day and night. Never before had the 
young fellow so understood the weight of re¬ 
sponsibility that rested on the engine driver’s 
shoulders. 

Perhaps it was because he was growing older. 
Or perhaps the recent sad happening to old By¬ 
ron Marks had made a deep impression on Ralph 
Fairbanks’ mind. At any rate, he felt that he 
would never round this curve again—or any 
other blind curve on the division—without ex¬ 
periencing a tremor of fear. 

Suddenly a figure leaped into view, silhouetted 
against the silver tree tops beyond and behind 


146 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


it, not on the dangerous side of the rails. It 
stood upon a high bowlder across the right-hand 
ditch. A tall, ghostly figure, the appearance of 
which made Ralph reach for the reverse lever 
with nervously crooked fingers. 

Then he realized that it was some person who 
signalled “All clear’’ with arms like those of a 
semaphore. Somebody then was on watch here 
at this dangerous turn. 

Ralph applied the brakes carefully, gently. 
The long train shuddered; but there was no harsh 
jouncing of the coaches. The wheels slid around 
the turn. 

And as the ray of the headlight caught the 
figure on the bowlder for a moment, the young 
railroader knew who it was. 

“Zeph!” he ejaculated, under his breath. 

The young assistant of Bob Adair had selected 
the most perilous point in Shadow Valley to 
watch. While Zeph was there, Ralph might be 
pretty sure that no harm would befall the division 
trains. 

He was carried past the bowlder swiftly. He 
leaned out to wave his arm and try to attract 
the notice of his friend. But the flash of the 
headlight’s ray had undoubtedly blinded Zeph 
for the moment and there was no answering 
signal from him. However, as long as Zeph was 


THROUGH SHADOW VALLEY 


i4 7 

faithful at that post Ralph would feel little 
anxiety in approaching it. 

The young engineer pulled on through the val¬ 
ley at top speed and then charged the hill to Ox¬ 
ford with four minutes to spare. Perfect run¬ 
ning of a passenger train means keeping at an 
exact and harmonious speed for the entire dis¬ 
tance between stops. In this case, however, 
Ralph knew that if he had not gained something 
on the schedule before striking the Oxford hill 
he never would have made that stop, as he did, 
exactly on the schedule moment. 

The worst of the run for the Midnight Flyer 
was then behind him. 


CHAPTER XVII 


MORE DISCIPLINE 

That run on the Midnight Flyer was a memo¬ 
rable one for Ralph Fairbanks, not alone because 
of the importance of the train to the schedule of 
the division, but because of the mental strain he 
was under all the way. 

The general manager’s congratulatory wire that 
was put into his hand when he climbed aboard his 
engine for the return trip from Hammerfest, of 
course pleased him; but the young railroader 
felt that there was something more due any en¬ 
gineer who pulled that Midnight Flyer and got 
it into the western terminal on time, as he had. 

Up in those offices overlooking the Rockton 
yard, Ralph as chief of the train dispatching 
crew for the division, had got a little out of 
touch with the engineers and firemen. He 
acknowledged it now r . 

He had been complaining because many of the 
hard-working mechanics had not seemed to do 

their best in handling the division trains. Back 

148 


MORE DISCIPLINE 


149 

in the same harness that they wore, Ralph could 
appreciate their difficulties again. 

“And that’s the matter with Barton Hopkins,” 
thought the young fellow. “He isn’t as fit as I 
am, for instance, to manage these men. He 
never was an engineer, or sprayed coal into a fire¬ 
box. No, sir! He doesn’t know a thing about 
this end of railroading, save by theory. 

“And mere theory is bound to get a man in 
wrong. Practise is the thing! I wonder how 
Hopkins will come out of this, if the strike be¬ 
comes general? Why, the directors and stock¬ 
holders who praise him so now will fairly crucify 
him if things go wrong and he is shown to be in 
any way at fault.” 

Ralph believed thoroughly that Barton Hop¬ 
kins was at fault. Every man he talked to on the 
run was criticizing Supervisor Hopkins. 

“They’re all. knocking the super. The anvil 
chofus on Hopkins’ past, present, and future 
seems to be the most popular number on the 
division program,” Ralph said to his two fire¬ 
men. 

“Should think you would join in, Fairbanks,” 
said one of them. “You’ve got little to thank 
him for.” 

“There is something bigger than Barton Hop¬ 
kins to consider,” replied Ralph. 


150 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“Sure! The rules of the Brotherhood,” was 
the quick reply. 

“No! The welfare of the road. The Great 
Northern has supported me for some years. I 
mean to support it. When I can’t do so I’ll 
resign and get another job. But I won’t bite 
the hand that has fed me for so long.” 

“You would not strike, then, even if the 
Brotherhood ordered it?” asked one of the fire¬ 
men. 

“Only for some very grave reason. Not 
over such a silly rule as those shopmen went out 
on.” 

“Oh, they had plenty of other grievances.” 

“So have we all. Everybody is sore in these 
times. It’s in the air. Fault-finding seems to 
be a germ-producing disease,” and Ralph grinned. 
“But make up your mind,” and he added this 
earnestly, “I am not going to be bit by such a 
microbe as McCarrey. Not any!” 

Perhaps his sane and sensible speech on every 
possible occasion did something toward keeping 
the better class of Great Northern employees 
steady. But when he got back to Rockton on 
the return trip he found the yards almost dead. 
The morning yard shift had gone out when they 
found that the new order of the supervisor’s on 
the shop board applied to them as well. 


MORE DISCIPLINE 


151 

At once, of course, the train dispatching de¬ 
partment was balled up with late freights. But 
as it stood, Ralph had no part of that worry on 
his mind. Mr. Glidden had sent one of his best 
men from main headquarters to sit at Ralph’s 
desk, and the latter started home through the 
bustling streets, weary but satisfied. He hoped 
to put in a long sleep before being called for the 
midnight run again. 

Was it by chance, or with voluntary intention, 
that the young railroader went through the block 
on which Cherry Hopkins lived ? He did not al¬ 
ways walk home that way. But it was true some 
thought of the pretty girl was almost always 
in his mind at this time. 

He had passed the Hopkins house without look¬ 
ing at it and was several yards beyond when he 
heard a door slam and a clear voice called to 
him: 

“Ralph Fairbanks! Ralph Fairbanks!” 

Ralph wheeled to see the girl, her bobbed hair 
flying, running down the path and out of the gate. 
But he saw something else, too. Coming along 
the sidewalk and increasing his stride as he saw 
and heard his daughter, was Mr. Barton Hop¬ 
kins. His countenance displayed all the dislike 
and disapproval of Ralph that the latter knew the 
supervisor felt. 


152 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“Oh, Ralph!” cried the unconscious Cherry. 
“I want to speak to you.” 

Ralph walked back to meet her. He did not 
intend to run from Barton Hopkins. But he fore¬ 
saw trouble for the pretty and impulsive girl. 

“Oh, Ralph Fairbanks! I have heard what 
you did last night. It was fine of you—taking 
out the Flyer when the poor old engineer dropped 
dead. What a terrible thing that was!” 

“You are right. It is a sorry thing for By’s 
family. I understand he did not leave them well 
fixed.” 

“Won’t the Brotherhood-” 

“It will do all that is possible. But there is 
no real pension for an engineer’s family. He only 
carried accident insurance. There must have 
always been something the matter with his heart 
that kept him from getting regular insurance. 
And he hid it.” 

“And was a criminal, thereby,” said the harsh 
voice of Supervisor Hopkins behind his daughter. 
“Suppose that had happened—his death—when 
he was driving his engine on the road? Some¬ 
body was at fault there, and I mean to find out 
who. The old man should have been retired 
long ago.” 

“Oh, father! If he needed the work-” 

“What do you know about that?” Mr. Hop- 




MORE DISCIPLINE 


153 

kins said coldly. “Don’t believe everything you 
hear, Cherry.” 

“But Mr. Fairbanks says-” 

“Least of all what this young man says. And 
now, once for all, I tell you to drop this intimacy 
with Fairbanks,” he continued, starting with his 
daughter toward the gate to the grounds. “I 
don’t care to have you associate with him. Un¬ 
derstand?” 

“Oh, father!” cried Cherry, almost in tears. 
“Ralph has been kind to me. I am sure he has 
done you no harm,” Ralph overheard her reply. 

“Neither of your statements enters into the con¬ 
sideration at all. I object to your associating 
with this fellow.” 

“Why, father!” 

“You have heard what I have said,” said Bar¬ 
ton Hopkins bitterly. “Fairbanks would better 
keep away from here. As for you, Cherry, I can 
make you obey me. Let him alone. Don’t speak 
to him again.” 

The girl’s head went up and she stared at her 
father proudly. Ralph had previously decided 
that she did not take much after her mouse-like 
mother. In some ways she had all the assertive¬ 
ness of the supervisor himself. 

“I will obey you in every way possible, father,” 
she said softly but firmly. “But I cannot pass 



154 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


Ralph on the street as though I did not know 
him. He is my friend. He has been kind to 
me. I could not treat him as you want me to.” 

“Then, young lady, I’ll send you away where 
you will not be likely to cross his path. You are 
getting too bold and stubborn, anyway. Go in 
and pack your trunk. I’ll see your mother. You 
shall start this very day for your aunt’s at Selby 
Junction. Go into the house!” 

He hustled her up the path toward the house 
as though she were a small child who had dis¬ 
obeyed him. Cherry was crying. As for Ralph, 
he had never before so wanted to hit a man and 
refrained from doing it! 

“Discipline,” he growled, as he moved away. 
“That is what he calls it. He runs his household 
and his family just as he tries to run the division. 

“Well, sir, unless I much miss my guess, he is 
going to fall down, and fall down badly, on both 
propositions. But poor Cherry! Wish I hadn’t 
walked this way. I got her in bad. And now 
he’ll send her away and I’ll probably never see her 
again,” he finished, with a sigh. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


FROM BAD TO WORSE 

Ralph refrained from telling his mother any¬ 
thing about this recent occurrence. He knew she 
would feel hurt because of what Barton Hopkins 
had said. She was much more likely to resent 
a slight put upon her son than Ralph was himself. 

And, in any event, there was so much else to 
tell the widow regarding the happenings of the 
last eighteen hours that he himself quite forgot 
the sting that he had first felt because of Mr.. 
Hopkins' unfair speech and ungentlemanly con¬ 
duct. 

But later the fact that Cherry Hopkins was to 
be sent away from Rockton to get her out of 
Ralph’s way was a matter that returned again 
and again to the young fellow’s mind. It seemed 
unfair, not alone to him, but to the girl herself. 

And he fancied Mrs. Hopkins would be much 
disturbed by her husband’s decision. Ralph was 
really sorry to be the cause of friction in the 
supervisor’s family. 


155 


156 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“Why, if he had spoken decently—asked me 
like a man! He knew I could hear all he said—' 
meant I should—I would have promised not tO ( 
speak to Cherry or approach her in any way. 
Of course I would! What does he think I am?” 

The thought of this troubled him for several 
days in spite of all the other matters of serious 
portent which weighed upon his spirits. 

For things on the division were going rapidly 
from bad to worse. With the shops practically 
closed, for as vet the Great Northern had not 
tried to bring in strike-breakers, the rolling stock 
of the division fast became crippled. There were 
breakdowns innumerable. Some of the freight 
engines were soon ready for the scrap heap. And 
it made a regular schedule, for freight at least, 
all but impossible. 

The influence of other officials—not that of 
Barton Hopkins—kept the older maintenance of 
way men faithful. Most of the section hands 
stayed on the job. In fact the bulk of the trouble 
lay in the shops and yards at Rockton. 

There Andy McCarrev’s influence was most 
felt. He had some political backing, too. And 
the dislike for Supervisor Hopkins was more 
pronounced at this terminal than at the other, or 
along the line. 

Meanwhile Ralph had continued as engineman 


FROM BAD TO WORSE 


157 


of the Midnight Flyer and the eastbound express 
from Hammerfest. That his mother was far 
from reconciled to this change in his work, he 
well knew. But she was as loyal in her way to 
the best interests of the Great Northern as the 
young fellow himself. 

“If the general manager asked you to do it, 
Ralph, of course you could not refuse,” said Mrs. 
Fairbanks. “But I shall never be satisfied until 
you are back in the train dispatcher's office. I 
hope for your advancement to more important 
positions than that of locomotive engineer.” 

“Plenty of time for that,” said her son cheer¬ 
fully. “And I know the G. M. will not forget 
me. It is only for a short time, we shall hope. 
This strike will not last forever.” 

But he did not tell her of the many delays 
and actually perilous chances of his situation. 
He had been accosted on the street and threatened 
by some of the strikers. The men who had 
broken away from their unions as well as from 
the employing railroad were desperately deter¬ 
mined to stop every wheel on the division. 

It was Andy McCarrey’s boast that he would 
have the Great Northern on its knees in a month. 
It seemed that he had a large strike fund at his 
command. And Ralph suspected that the fellow 
likewise had under his control a band of rascals 


158 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

who would go to any length to cripple the rail¬ 
road. 

Gangs of ill-favored fellows were hanging 
about the yards. He heard of such men, too, all 
along the division. Tool sheds were broken 
into; the sect.on gangs’ handcars were crippled; 
fires were set on railroad property; numberless 
small crimes were committed which could not be 
traced to the strikers themselves, but were un¬ 
doubtedly committed at Andy McCarrey’s be¬ 
hest. 

“If we could just get one thing hitched to that 
slick rascal, we would put him where the dogs 
wouldn’t get a chance to bite him for some time,” 
Bob Adair said once to Ralph. “But McCarrey 
is as sharp as a needle. By the way, how much 
of that old tenement house did you see the night 
you and Zeph found him and Grif Falk over 
there?” 

“Very little of it. It appeared to be practi¬ 
cally empty. And I am sure there were no 
families living in it,” Ralph replied. 

“You are right in that,” said the detective. 
“It is an old condemned tenement. But some¬ 
how McCarrey has got a lease of it. Nobody 
seems to know what goes on in there. And there 
is no good reason, as far as the police can find, 
for searching the premises. 


FROM BAD TO WORSE 


J 59 


“If I could just make sure the supply of liquor 
some of the men are getting is stored there, it 
would give us an opening. But if we do any¬ 
thing that can be proved illegal, McCarrey will 
have a case against us. He has some of the 
sharpest lawyers in the city in his pay.” 

“Did you find Whitey Malone?” asked the 
engineer of the Midnight Flyer reflectively. 

“No. Zeph has lost trace of him. But I be¬ 
lieve the fellow is still away from Rockton. I 
fancy McCarrey was afraid to trust him here. 
Or he has been sent along the road on some er¬ 
rand that has not yet come to a head. That 
boy, Zeph, is like a beagle on a trail, how¬ 
ever. I hope he will mark down his man before 
long.” 

Ralph’s own eyes were always open for the 
appearance of Whitey. By night, of course, 
while he sat on the bench of the big locomotive 
that drew the Midnight Flyer, he could not hope 
to see much on either side of the twin rails over 
which his train sped. But coming back by day¬ 
light he saw a good deal more. 

The eastbound express made several stops be¬ 
sides those four which the Flyer made. And it 
was during those brief stops that Ralph picked 
up most of the news he got regarding the feeling 
of the road’s employees along the division. 


l6o RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


At Hardwell, a considerable lumbering town 
some miles east of Oxford and on the slope of 
Shadow Valley, Ralph first heard of the “bandit.” 
He saw on the platform a man with his head 
bandaged surrounded by a little group of in¬ 
terested natives. The engineer identified the 
evidently wounded man as the third trick opera¬ 
tor and signalman at this station. 

He could not leave his engine, of course, but 
the operator knew Ralph and came down the 
platform to speak to him. 

“I got a nasty smash on the head this morning,” 
he explained. “I don’t know who the rascal was, 
but he got a hundred and forty dollars of the 
road’s money and my watch and stickpin.” 

“How came you to let him do that, Fiske?” 
Ralph asked, but with some sympathy. 

“I was setting the signals for your own train, 
Fairbanks, the Midnight Flyer. I didn’t hear 
the fellow come in, but just as I turned from 
the levers I found him there behind me. Sure 
I had a gun! But it was in the desk drawer. 
We haven’t had a hold-up around here for years. 
He hit me on the head with the butt of his gun 
and I went down and out. When I came to he 
had lit out with my junk and the company’s 
money.” 

“That is too bad,” said Ralph, as he caught 


FROM BAD TO WORSE 


161- 


sight of the conductor’s raised arm. “What kind 
of looking fellow was he?” 

“Don’t know. He had a flour bag over his 
head. Tall, husky fellow. That is all I know 
about it. The super is giving me rats over the 
wire.” 

“He would,” called out Ralph, as he let the 
steam into the cylinders and the train began to 
move. 

“Now, I wonder,” thought the young engi¬ 
neer, “if Whitey Malone had anything to do 
with that. Or is the bandit a free-lance with no 
connection with these strikers? Humph! Where 
is Zeph, I wonder?” 

When Zeph next appeared it was in an aston¬ 
ishing way. Neither Ralph nor his queer friend 
was likely to forget the occasion. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE HOLD-UP IN SHADOW VALLEY 

As the days slowly passed Ralph Fairbanks be¬ 
came very curious on one particular point. And 
this was something quite aside from his activities 
on the road or the strike developments. 

He wondered if Cherry Hopkins had been 
sent away from home as her father had threat¬ 
ened. 

The young fellow never went -through the 
street where Mr. Hopkins lived on his way to 
and from his home. He would not appear to be 
curious regarding the girl. He did not want to 
attract her father’s attention and create more 
trouble for Cherry, if the latter was still in Rock- 
ton. 

He thought highly of the young girl. As his 
mother had intimated, he had never paid much at¬ 
tention to any particular girl before. 

“How is your friend, Cherry Hopkins?” the 
widow sometimes asked him. 

“Got too much to do now to think of girls,” 
he would return, with a laugh. 

162 


THE HOLD-UP IN SHADOW VALLEY 163 

But perhaps neither his tone nor his laugh quite 
convinced Mrs. Fairbanks that all was right. 
She asked shrewdly on one occasion: 

“Have you seen Miss Cherry lately?” 

“Not for a week. I believe she expected to go 
away. I don’t know whether she has or has not 
gone.” 

“Would you like to know, Ralph?” asked his 
mother softly. 

At that the young fellow awoke to the discovery 
that his mother was looking at him queerly. 

“Why, Mother!” he exclaimed, “you don’t 
suppose I care particularly about any of the Hop¬ 
kins family?” 

“I think you do about Cherry,” she returned. 
“And from what I have heard about her, she is 
well worth your caring for—in a friendly way, I 
mean.” 

“My goodness! what is all this?” asked the 
wondering Ralph. 

His mother smiled and shook her head at 

him. 

“You must not think that you can hide anything 
from me,” she said. “There is a little bird comes 
and tells me-” 

“Hoh!” cried Ralph, interrupting. “There 
are a lot of those little birds.’ And I bet they 
all belong to the St. Mark’s Sewing Guild. Yes, 




164 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

sir! What has Gossip’s tongue been saying 
now?” 

“Gossip can be kind as well as cruel. After 
all, Ralph, gossip is the most interesting thing in 
the world. Newspapers and magazines and 
books are full of it. Just gossip. And what I 
heard about you was anything but unkind, al¬ 
though it did not sound good for Mr. Hopkins.” 

His mother went on to relate what she had 
heard from an eyewitness of the occurrence when 
the supervisor had forbidden his daughter to 
speak to Ralph, and then had promised to send 
her away from home because of her defiance. 

“She is a girl who would make any boy a faith¬ 
ful friend. I admire her very much, although 
I have never seen her,” Mrs. Fairbanks said. 
“And I wonder at that man, Mr. Hopkins, Ralph, 
for picking on you the way he does. I cannot 
understand it.” 

“Unfortunately,” her son told her, “I have un¬ 
intentionally occasioned Mr. Hopkins some ruf¬ 
fling of the temper. And, believe me, his temper 
is easy to ruffle. Well, I am sorry if Cherry was 
sent away because of me. It’s so foolish.” 

“Yes, I am told she has gone,” said his mother. 
“To Shelby Junction. Of course, you never go 
as far away from Rockton as that?” 

“Not likely,” replied Ralph, laughing to hide 


THE HOLD-UP IN SHADOW VALLEY 165 

a good bit of his disappointment. “Nobody but 
the strikers is taking a vacation on this division 
of the Great Northern.” 

The number of strikers increased daily. News 
came from points all along the division that little 
bunches of workmen in various departments had 
thrown down their tools and joined the strikers. 
Hopkins was strongly in favor of hiring men in 
the East and bringing them out to take the 
strikers’ places, especially in the shops. And per¬ 
haps he was right in this desire, for the locomo¬ 
tives and other rolling stock were fast becoming 
decrepit. 

Ralph, like most of the old-timers driving the 
engines, saw to it that his toolbox was well fitted 
and he carried spare valves and cocks and such 
small articles against chance trouble. It was not 
against the rules for a locomotive engineer to 
tinker with his huge charge if it broke down any¬ 
where on the run. 

When they came back to Rockton each day, 
however, Ralph and his two firemen went over the 
mechanism of the big eight-wheeler with meticu¬ 
lous care. The firemen took example of their 
chief and watched for small faults and possible 
breakdowns, like two cats at a mousehole. 

Whenever the Midnight Flyer or the return 
eastbound express halted, down jumped the fire- 


166 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


men with their long nosed oilcans and squirted 
the lubricant into every nook and cranny they 
could get at. The roundhouse foreman sputtered 
like a wet firecracker about Ralph’s demands on 
him for oil. 

“Better be oil than brass work and steel,” said 
the young engineer. “Don’t forget that, Mike.” 

“I don’t forget nothin’,” grumbled Mike. “But 
the super is watchin’ the out-put of lubricatin’ 
oil. He has an idee we feed it to the cats and 
grease the turntables with it. He sees a chance 
of savin’ the Great Northern two cents’ worth of 
oil in the course of a year. Huh!” 

“Well, I am not going to buy the oil myself,” 
Ralph rejoined, with conviction. “And we don’t 
carry a greaser’s slushpot on the Midnight Flyer.” 

“Sure, are the wheelboxes heatin’ on you?” 
asked the foreman. 

“I think they need repacking. But, of course, 
there isn’t time between runs to do all that. Is 
there another locomotive I could use to pull the 
Flyer with?” 

“You know there isn’t. Not a bull in the 
stable, anyway, could make the time you are get¬ 
ting out of that mill. Two-o-two would be an 
hour late at Hammerfest.” 

“Don’t tell me that!” gasped Ralph. “I am 
having a hard enough time as it is. Guess I’ll 


THE HOLD-UP IN SHADOW VALLEY 167 

have to coax this one along until they can send 
you a Class-A locomotive over from the main.” j 

‘‘And when will that be, I dunno,” muttered the 
pessimistic foreman. 

So Ralph was pulling out of the Rockton ter¬ 
minal every night with a sort of sick feeling at 
the pit of his stomach. He said nothing to any¬ 
body about this nervous apprehension—not even 
to his mother. It seemed unmanly, he thought. 
He never knew before that he was a coward! 

That is what he called it, cowardice. But it 
was not. It was the effect of increased responsi¬ 
bility on his mind. The threat of some terrible 
accident to the train he pulled was always hanging 
over him. 

Strikers and their sympathizers now gathered 
about the crossings at midnight when the Flyer 
pulled out and booed and threatened the train 
crew. It was spread broadcast in the labor 
journals that something was likely to happen to 
the crippled engines pulling the division trains. 

Passengers were warned by big posters to re¬ 
frain from traveling by this division of the Great 
Northern in particular, because the strike of shop¬ 
men and maintenance of way men made it im¬ 
possible for the trains to be run safely and on 
time. 

But Barton Hopkins was by no means a fool. 


168 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


He gave an interview to the reporters of the fair- 
minded journals in which he showed by schedule 
that the passenger trains, at least, over the 
division, were ordinarily on time. He even took 
advantage of Ralph Fairbanks’ governing the 
engine pulling the Midnight Flyer to prove that 
that important train had kept closer to the 
schedule since the beginning of the strike than 
ever before. 

This statement to the press angered the strikers 
more than anything that Hopkins had done. Its 
truth hurt their cause. When Ralph pulled the 
Flyer out of the yards that night, at Hammerby 
Street the cab was assailed with stones and rotten 
vegetables from a gang of hoodlums, of course 
egged on my McCarrey. 

“Scab! Scab!” these fellows yelled as the 
broken glass tinkled about the ears of the engi¬ 
neer and his two firemen. 

“Jim Perkins ought to be big enough to stop 
that,” urged one of the firemen. “They say he 
still holds his job in the old union but has spoken 
at the meetings in Beeman Hall. 

“There is a bunch of fellows helping him stir 
up trouble, too,” observed his mate. “Billy 
Lyons and Sam Peters and some others. But 
they all keep their cards in the old union. Some¬ 
thing rotten—something rotten, boy, believe me!” 


THE HOLD-UP IN SHADOW VALLEY 169 

This suspicion that the small unions were play¬ 
ing an underhanded game—or that officers of 
those unions were doing so—kept many of the 
wiser employees of the Great Northern in line. 

Ralph secretly told himself that that fusillade 
of rotten vegetables and stones aimed at his fire¬ 
men and himself in the cabin of the big locomo¬ 
tive that pulled the Midnight Flyer cured both of 
the firemen of any suspicion of sympathy with 
the men who had struck and their supporters. 

But, after all, Ralph would have felt safer if 
there had been guards riding on the train and 
on the locomotive, as there had been in war times 
when he helped get the soldiers through to the 
embarkation port. Mr. Adair, however, did not 
believe in a show of force. He had men in plain 
clothes unobtrusively distributed along the 
division; but they could not be discovered from 
the passengers save by those who had inside in¬ 
formation. 

Coming down the hill beyond Shadow Valley 
Station on this very morning that the Midnight 
Flyer engine crew had been bombarded, Ralph 
chanced to be thinking of Zeph. It was a black 
hour; there was not a star visible. The loco¬ 
motive was steaming well. She was going so 
fast, in fact, that if there had been any obstruc¬ 
tion on the straight track it is doubtful if the 


170 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

headlight would have picked it out in time for 
Ralph to have stopped the heavy train. 

But he had to take that chance to make the 
schedule. He knew the track walkers of this 
section were all true and tried men. Under 
ordinary circumstances and conditions, the in¬ 
spection of this piece of track had been made 
within half an hour. 

Ralph sat with his hand on the throttle. He 
could shut off, without reversing, and set the 
brakes with two swift motions in five seconds. 
The brakes were really dragging a bit on the 
wheels, for the curve was near and he must ease 
the engine around that. 

No startling figure appeared this night on the 
bowlder beside the right of way. Ralph needed 
no heart-stimulant, his pulse throbbed just a 
little rapidly. He almost held his breath as he 
shut down the throttle and the headlight flashed 
off the rails as the heavy engine approached the 
turn. 

This was the dangerous spot. For several 
moments the light did not reveal the ribbons of 
steel very far ahead. Behind that turn wreck and 
disaster might lie! 

And yet, the young engineer dared not creep 
around' it. To lose time on this important run 


THE HOLD-UP IN SHADOW VALLEY iji 


meant much to the Great Northern. He must 
keep on- 

The head of the locomotive swerved and the 
light caught the two rails again at a distance. 
The great white ray of the lamp shot into the 
tunnel of blackness under the trees. 

And then, as one of the watching firemen sang 
out from the other side of the cab, Ralph grabbed 
the reverse lever and threw it down in the corner. 
He could not stop for easing her off. He slapped 
on the brakes. Fire flashed from the coach 
wheels and a grinding and bumping told of the 
damage being done because of this vicious stop. 

The occasion called for such drastic measures, 
however. The Midnight Flyer was held up. 
What it meant, Ralph did not know, but in the 
middle of the westbound track stood a man’s 
figure outlined by fire! 

Had he not pulled down the heavy train as he 
had, the locomotive would have collided with the 
flaming object. 


i 



CHAPTER XX 


STRANGE SIGNALS 

The pilot of the great engine was within six 
feet of the flaming figure when the train was 
stopped. And Ralph knew, and unhappily, that 
several of the coach wheels were so badly flat¬ 
tened by the pressure of the brakes that they 
would have to go to the shops to be replaned. 

This thought was back in his head, however. 
First and foremost he wanted to know what this 
was ahead—this strange signal that had caused 
him to bring the Flyer to such an abrupt stop. 

One of the firemen leaped to the cinder path 
and ran ahead. In a moment he turned and 
waved his arms madly. 

“It’s a scarecrow! I believe it came out of 
yonder cornfield. A scarecrow all afire!” 

He kicked the blazing figure and it fell over, 
the straw contents of the old coat and trousers 
flaring up into a more vivid flame. 

“Somebody has played a joke on us,” shouted 
the other fireman. “And a pretty poor joke, at 
that.” 


172 


STRANGE SIGNALS 


173 


“Maybe it is no joke,” was Ralph’s comment. 
“Stilling, you go forward with a lantern. If all’s 
clear at the next curve give us a high-ball. There 
may be something more than a joke in this 
mysterious affair. Hurry up, now 1” 

Stilling ran ahead. The conductor came for¬ 
ward, worried about the delay. The violent stop¬ 
ping of the train had awakened many of the pas¬ 
sengers and the Pullmans, he said, were buzzing. 

“Let ’em buzz,” replied Ralph carelessly. 

Stilling’s lantern flitted on like a firefly’s light. 
Ralph's gaze was fixed upon it. He hoped to 
see the sign given by the lamp that the way 
was clear. 

But when Stilling reached the long curve that 
began nearly an eighth of a mile beyond the 
point where the Flyer had been brought to a 
stop, he halted—they could see that by the motion 
of the lantern—and then went on slowly. By 
and by he signaled: 

“Come ahead—slow.” 

There was something wrong. The conductor 
knew this as well as the young engineer. The 
former’s lantern signaled a question back to his 
flagman. The latter brought in his lantern from 
the other curve, signaled “All aboard! and 
Ralph started forward. 

There was just slant enough to the roadbed 




174 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


here to make it necessary for the engineer to keep 
some pressure of brakes on the wheels. The 
heavy train slid down to the place where Still¬ 
ing had stopped. 

When the train again came to a halt the head¬ 
light did not show the rails for more than ten 
yards. But it picked out the beginning of a 
short trestle by which the rails were carried over 
a deep ravine. 

Stilling walked back beside the huge boiler of 
the locomotive and spoke no word until he was 
directly under Ralph’s window. He was pale. 
His lips writhed before he could speak, and what 
he said was in a voice so husky that the listeners 
could scarcely understand him. 

‘‘One pillar’s been blown out—blown to pieces. 
The rails are sagging—have to be braced before 
anything can get over. Great guns! if we’d 
come down here at the usual speed, the old mill 
and every wagon in the string would have been 
piled in a heap down there in the Devil’s Den!” 

“By gum!” exclaimed the other fireman. “I 
thought I got some sound like an explosion as we 
came down the hill. The dynamite must have 
gone off only a few minutes ago.” 

“That burning scarecrow saved all our lives,” 
muttered Ralph. “Who did that?” 

“If there are ghouls around trying to wreck 


STRANGE SIGNALS 


175 


the train, and there are, then there are likewise 
watchers who defended us from harm. We have 
somebody to thank,” said the conductor. 

There was no more comment on this mysterious 
thing by the train and engine crew for some time 
thereafter. There was too much else to do. 
Somebody had to go forward to the nearest sta¬ 
tion and telegraph for wrecking crew and other 
help. 

A terrible disaster had barely been averted. 
The passengers aboard the Midnight Flyer on this 
occasion would not be likely soon to forget the 
incident. Stilling had not overstated the horror 
that had been averted. 

The wires certainly buzzed now, up and down 
the division. The express was delayed fully two 
hours, although the wrecking train was brought 
down from Oxford in record time. The freights 
began to pile up on both tracks. If this dastardly 
attempt to wreck the Midnight Flyer was the act 
of the strikers, they had come near to doing what 
Andy McCarrey threatened. The division might 
have been tied up for a couple of days if Ralph’s 
train had plunged into the Devil’s Den. 

Some of the crew looked into the matter of 
the burning scarecrow that had so luckily warned 
the engine crew of trouble ahead. The straw- 
stuffed figure had been taken from a small field 


176 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

of corn bordering the right of way. The owner 
of the field lived at some distance, but he came 
over to see what had happened. 

“I was woke up by that big explosion,” he de¬ 
clared. “I thought it was a blast in the quarry. 
Quarry is ten miles away, though. And then 
I began to wonder why they were blasting at 
night. So I got up and looked out, and saw the 
lights of the train and knew something had hap¬ 
pened, because it was standing still. So I came 
over.” 

As it chanced, Ralph heard him and he asked 
the farmer: 

“Have you seen any suspicious persons around 
here lately?” 

“Don’t know as I did. There’s been a young 
feller come to my place off and on for a week or 
more. But he ain’t what you’d call suspicious. 
He bought eggs and potatoes and such, and paid 
for ’em with good money. He didn’t look bad 
enough to want to ditch a train. No, sir.” 

There were too many people around for Ralph 
to describe Zeph Dallas to this man and try to 
find out if the fellow he spoke of was his friend. 
Yet he could not help believing that Zeph was 
still in this vicinity and that he had taken the des¬ 
perate chance of stopping the Midnight Flyer with 
the burning scarecrow. Yet, if this was so, why 


STRANGE SIGNALS 


1 77 

had Zeph not remained to see if his strange 
signal set against the train had done its work of 

warning ? 

“Odd enough/’ thought Ralph. “Odd enough 
to have emanated from Zeph’s brain, that is sure. 
But where did Zeph go, if so, and why?” 

In any event, Zeph did not show up at the place 
before the trestle was braced and the express 
moved on. Ralph got his belated train to Ham¬ 
mer fest, the end of the run, two hours late. He 
had to start back almost immediately with the 
forenoon express that was supposed to reach 
Rockton at half past eleven. 

When this train reached the scene of the early 
morning excitement Ralph had to ease her along 
very slowly. The first repairs on the trestle were 
by no means permanent. 

By daylight he could see, from the cab window, 
the entire scene of what had come so near being 
an awful catastrophe. On the south side of the 
right of way at this point was a towering crag. 
It was covered by scrub growth that masked the 
rocks, but the young engineer had once climbed 
that rock and knew that there was more than one 
path to the top. 

As he looked upward he saw, caught upon a 
bush some yards above the level of the railroad, a 
garment fluttering in the breeze. He was posi- 


178 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

tive, after a moment, that it was a vest—a dis¬ 
carded vest. 

“Some hobo has left part of his outfit,” thought 
Ralph. 

But then, as he raised his eyes higher, he saw 
another strange signal fluttering from a bush. ! It 
was a shirt. He could see the sleeves of it, 
and it fluttered grotesquely. 

“Why?” the young engineer muttered. 

He looked farther up the steep wall and saw a 
cap! Something about that cap astonished him 
even more than the other fluttering articles of 
wearing apparel. Distant as it was, Ralph thought 
he recognized that cap. It was of a mustard 
color, an odd color, and he remembered that the 
night he had had his last adventure with Zeph 
Dallas in Rockton Zeph had worn just that sort 
of cap! 

Then he got the signal to go ahead, and could 
do nothing at the moment to investigate these 
matters. He pulled up the hill toward Shadow 
Valley Station. 


CHAPTER XXI 


ABOUT CHERRY 

The first thing Ralph did on his arrival at 
Rockton after that momentous round trip to and 
from Hammerfest, was to look up Bob Adair. 
He knew where to find the chief detective now; 
or, at least, who to ask about him without dis¬ 
turbing Supervisor Hopkins. 

He reached the detective at last. Of course 
Mr. Adair had heard all about the dynamiting of 
the trestle pillar at Devil’s Den. He had sent 
a man to make a special report on the terrible af¬ 
fair. But he had not heard from Dallas and he 
was worried. 

“The boy’s in trouble. That is what is the 
matter. What you tell me, Ralph, bears out my 
suspicion.” 

“I bet he set up that scarcrow and fired it to 
stop the Flyer,” the engineer of that fast train 
observed. 

“Granted. He must have been watching in 
that vicinity. But the trestle wreckers were too 

179 


180 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

smart for him. The charge was exploded and 
the trestle wrecked. He had not time to go to 
the nearest telegraph station, so he set the fire 
instead. But what became of him then?” 

“I fear something bad has happened to him,” 
was the answer. 

“Great Scott! something is always happening 
to Zeph,” observed Mr. Adair. 

“I know. But it must have been something 
serious for him to discard his cap and vest and 
even his outer shirt. For I believe all those 
things hung on the bushes up there on the crag 
belonged to Zeph.” 

“Perhaps he hung them there before the pillar 
was blown out.” 

“But what for? I don’t get it at all,” cried 
Ralph. “Queer as Zeph is, he isn’t crazy. Not 
at all! He had a reason for making signals to 
somebody, and that shirt et cetera are signals.” 

“See to-morrow when you go by if they are 
still there,” suggested Mr. Adair. “Meanwhile 
I will have my men beat the bushes for him 
around there. I will have that fanner you speak 
of interviewed.” 

“But if anything bad has really happened to 
Zeph, it will be too late,” sighed Ralph as he 
turned away and started homeward. 


ABOUT CHERRY 


181 


He could not take Mr. Adair’s easy view of the 
mystery. Ralph had a fondness for Zeph. He 
could not forget the many times the odd fellow 
had helped him or been associated with him in 
dangerous adventure. 

And now, it seemed to Ralph, Zeph Dallas must 
himself need help or he would not have shed 
his garments on the side of that crag overhang¬ 
ing the Devil’s Den. Ralph greatly desired to 
look into the matter. 

Yet, he could not do that. The general man¬ 
ager had put him on his honor when he gave him 
the Midnight Flyer run. Ralph could not desert 
that duty even to aid a friend. 

He heard about another person in trouble when 
he arrived at home. His mother was full of 
it. 

“Did you hear that Mrs. Hopkins was very 
ill, Ralph?” the widow asked, almost at once 
when he entered the cottage. 

“I’d be ill if I were that man’s relative,” 
grumbled the young engineer. “What is the 
matter with her?” 

“It seems to be a long-standing trouble the 
doctor has been treating her for, and now she 
must go under an operation. Actually, they say 
she is wearing her heart out because Cherry is 


182 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


away from her and at Shelby Junction. She has 
never been separated from her before so she 
tells Mrs. Wagner. That man is awful!” 

“He is getting worse around the yards,” said 
Ralph. “I just heard he accuses one of the 
section foremen of letting the strikers steal dyna¬ 
mite so that they could blow up that trestle.” 

Mrs. Fairbanks had heard of that; but she had 
no idea her son’s life had been in danger. And 
Ralph was not telling her too much. He was 
glad she switched to Mrs. Hopkins* illness 
again. 

“If Cherry is not allowed to come home, I fear 
her mother will never come through the opera¬ 
tion alive,” said the widow. “Mrs. Wagner says 
the doctor declares Hopkins the hardest man to 
move from a decision he ever knew. He calls it 
‘mental delinquency’ on the supervisor’s part. 
He says,” and Mrs. Fairbanks smiled, “if Hop¬ 
kins had been spanked at the right time when he 
was a boy, and spanked enough, he would not 
have got the ‘self-importance complex’ and be¬ 
come such a nuisance to his fellowmen.” 

“That medico knows his business!” laughed 
Ralph. “Ain’t it the truth? as Zeph would say. 
And that reminds me, Mother. I fear Zeph is 
in some trouble down the line. Mr. Adair does 
not know what has become of him.” 


ABOUT CHERRY 


183 

‘‘That boy is always getting into some dif¬ 
ficulty,” said the widow. “I would not worry 
about him, if I were you, Ralph.” 

That day passed without any particular out¬ 
break by the strikers in Rockton. The police 
and railroad detectives had the situation pretty 
well in hand about the terminal and the city; 
yards. 

Mr. Hopkins had taken the bit in his teeth 
regarding the attempted wrecking of the Mid¬ 
night Flyer in Shadow, Valley. One of the sec¬ 
tion foremen near the trestle had obtained some 
dynamite for a specific purpose, and the super¬ 
visor had jumped to the conclusion that this fore¬ 
man had given up the explosive to the strikers. 

This unproved assertion provoked more trouble 
on the entire length of the division. The section 
foreman had complained to his union. The full 
quantity of dynamite was promptly found in his 
possession, and inside of ten hours the union of¬ 
ficials had demanded that Mr. Hopkins retract his 
accusation. 

“Now, why don’t they ask a hungry bulldog 
to give up a bone ?” Ralph observed, when he read 
this in the evening paper before leaving home for 
his night run to Hammerfest. “Those fellows 
are as bad as the super himself. He never han¬ 
dles anybody with gloves; but you can’t handle 


184 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


him without having your own hands muffled. 
And those union leaders ought to know it.” 

Ralph kissed his mother warmly at the door 
and started off for the station, swinging his heavy 
lunch can. Mrs. Fairbanks never overlooked the 
fact that a railroader is always hungry. And 
Ralph hated restaurant food. He carried enough 
for a bite on the engine as well as a hearty break¬ 
fast at the far end of his run. 

He did not go down to the roundhouse himself, 
but trusted to his firemen to back the locomotive 
on to the westbound track and into the train- 
shed. As he stood in his overalls and with his 
coat and lunch kit near the open window of the 
telegraph room, he heard Mr. Barton Hopkins’ 
voice inside. 

“Anything on, Silsby?” asked the supervisor, 
in his sharp, quick way. 

“No, Mr. Hopkins,” returned the night 
operative. 

“Rush this, then,” ordered the supervisor and 
then Ralph heard his quick step going out of the 
room. 

The operative, Silsby, turned immediately to 
his key. Ralph heard him call Shelby Junction 
and repeat the call until he got an answer. Then 
he sent the following, Ralph reading the Morse 
easily as Silsby tapped it out: 


ABOUT CHERRY 


185 


‘‘Miss C. Hopkins, 

“22 Horatio Street, 

“Shelby Junction. 

“Your mother ill. Old trouble, but seri¬ 
ous. Come home at once. 

“(Signed) B. Hopkins.” 

There was the repeat back from the Shelby 
Junction operator, and then Silsby gave the 
“O. K.” and closed his key. Ralph, waiting for 
the backing in of the big eight-wheeler for Num¬ 
ber 202, wondered if Mr. Hopkins was, after all, 
as case-hardened and hard-crusted as he appeared 
to be. 

The supervisor was having domestic trouble. 
Perhaps he loved his mouse-like little wife, and 
his daughter, as well. These family troubles 
might be one present cause of the supervisor’s 
caustic remarks and his uncompromising atti¬ 
tude in railroad affairs. 

“I was telling the G. M. the officials did not 
look at things from the men’s standpoint,” con¬ 
sidered Ralph. “Perhaps the men ought to see 
things from the supervisor’s standpoint, too.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE THREAT DIRECT 

Had Ralph Fairbanks not been standing just 
outside the telegraph office window he would not 
have obtained a certain bit of information which 
proved, later, to be most important. 

He had heard the operator send Mr. Hopkins’ 
wire to his daughter, and he knew very well that 
the girl would quickly respond to his and her 
mother’s need. But Ralph was not at all expect¬ 
ing such a seemingly prompt response as fol¬ 
lowed. 

The big illuminated clock in the train shed now 
pointed to a quarter to twelve. The long string 
of cars belonging to the Midnight Flyer had been 
backed in some time before and the gates had been 
opened for the passengers to swarm aboard. 
The berths were all made up, of course, and the 
passengers immediately went to bed. 

The young engineer, standing there idly, had 
his mind fixed upon the Hopkins’ troubles. How 
shocked Cherry would be to learn of her mother’s 

serious condition! It was true, as Ralph’s mother 

186 


THE THREAT DIRECT 


1 87 


had said, never before had her son thought so 
much of any girl as he did of Cherry Hopkins. 

Suddenly he heard the Rockton call on the 
telegraph sounder. It was rapped out a dozen 
times before Silsby, the operator, got to the key. 

“I, I, Rok,” was the notification Silsby gave 
impatiently. 

“Night letter for Super Hop. Overlooked. 
Shoot it,” came the reply, as plain to Ralph’s ear 
as it was to Silsby’s. 

“Oh, boy!” retorted the Rockton operator. 
“You’re all set for trouble. I’ll try to smooth 
it. Go!” 

Instantly the sounder began to click again and 
the Morse flowed smoothly to the listening engi¬ 
neer’s ears: 

“B. Hop., Super, 

“Rockton. 

“Got mother’s letter. Know she is ill. 

Am starting to-night on 10:40. Con. will 

pass me on your book. Tell mother I am 

coming. 

“(Signed) C. Hopkins.” 

It was odd, but the first thought Ralph Fair¬ 
banks had on overhearing this delayed message of 
Cherry Hopkins to her father was that the Mid- 


188 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


night Flyer would pass the 10:40 from Shelby 
Junction in Shadow Valley not far from the 
Devil’s Den. 

This message that had been delayed by some 
oversight should have reached the supervisor be¬ 
fore he telegraphed to his daughter to come home. 
Cherry had evidently read between the lines of 
her mother’s letter and determined to rejoin Mrs. 
Hopkins, whether her father approved or not. 

“Plucky girl!” thought Ralph. “She’s one 
person who doesn’t cower before the Great I Am. 
And she is already on the iron, coming home, as 
she thinks, without her father’s approval. Well, 
I guess the Hopkins will have to fight their family 
battles without any aid from me.” 

Ralph started for the edge of the platform, 
for he saw the rear of the locomotive backing 
in. Stilling held the throttle. This fireman 
would soon apply for an engineer’s job. He 
handled the huge machine like a veteran, and 
when the coupling was made the passengers al¬ 
ready in their berths aboard the train scarcely 
knew it, save for the long sigh of the compressed 
air. 

Ralph stepped aboard while the firemen made 
the connections. As usual he put his can under 
the seat on the driver’s side. As he stooped to 


THE THREAT DIRECT 


189 

do this, he saw something white fluttering in the 
draught. 

It was a folded paper hung upon a nail under 
the seat. He could not have missed seeing it 
when he set the luncheon kit down on the floor. 
He picked up the paper and stood up. He un¬ 
folded it in the light of his target lamp. Written 
boldly across the sheet were these words: 

“Fairbanks: —You're due for a bump 

to-night. If you like yourself, stay off the 

Midnight Flyer.” 

This threatening screed was unsigned. And 
yet, as Ralph stared at it, he somehow felt that 
he had seen the careless writing before. 

Who was this who seemed to be warning him, 
as well as threatening him? Was it a fake, or 
in earnest? Were the strikers or their friends 
trying to frighten him? Or did somebody who 
really felt kindly toward the young engineer be¬ 
lieve that he should be warned of a real danger? 

And where had he seen that handwriting be¬ 
fore? 

This last question seemed as important as the 
others. After the blowing out of the trestle 
pillar at the Devil’s Den, Ralph could easily be- 


190 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


lieve that Andy McCarrey’s crowd would at¬ 
tempt other wicked designs against the peace 
and safety of the road and its loyal employees. 

That the malcontents were making a grave mis¬ 
take was undoubtedly a fact. The outrage at 
Devil’s Den and further attempts to wreck trains 
on the division would arouse the antagonism of 
the Brotherhoods instead of bringing their mem¬ 
bership into line, as McCarrey had hoped. Such 
attempts threatened the lives of the train crews. 
Engineers and firemen and conductors and brake- 
men could not be frightened into aiding McCar¬ 
rey in his wildcat strike. That went without say¬ 
ing. 

Ralph had very little time to decide what he 
should do about this paper that he had found un¬ 
der his bench. He glanced up at the clock. 
Three minutes of midnight! 

But as his gaze fell to the platform again he 
saw the tall figure of Mr. Adair hurrying along 
beside the train. Ralph leaned farther out of 
the window and beckoned him. 

“What do you want, Ralph?” asked the chief 
detective hastily, as he leaped up the steps of the 
locomotive. “I have just heard-” 

“And I’ve just found this/' The young engi¬ 
neer told him where. “And I believe I’ve seen 
that writing before.” 



THE THREAT DIRECT 


191 

“Whose is it?” demanded Adair the instant he 
had scanned the warning words. 

Ralph leaned closer to his ear and whispered 
a name. Adair started. “No?” he cried. “Do 
you believe that?” 

“Compare it with that paper Zeph gave you,” 
urged Ralph. 

The gong sounded. The young engineer’s 
hand went to the throttle. The conductor shouted 
“All aboard !”• 

“Keep your eyes open, Ralph,” advised the 
chief detective, swinging himself down. “That 
is no idle threat. I am going to keep the wires 
hot ahead of the Midnight Flyer to-night. Never 
mind if you smash your schedule all to flinders. 
Safety first, my boy.” 

“That is not the super’s motto,” said Ralph, 
rather sharply. “ 'Get her through,’ is what he 
wants.” 

“You should worry!” exclaimed Adair as the 
great drivers began to turn. “The G. M. is be¬ 
hind you. I am having the whole division 
watched. I’ll jack the boys up right now. But 
if anything happens-” 

His voice trailed off into silence. At least 
it was drowned by the exhaust. The express 
rumbled out from under the train shed and Ralph 
eased her through the yards. 



192 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“Due for a bump to-night.” If that warning 
was serious, it was well worth Ralph Fairbanks’ 
attention. 

“But the fellow doesn’t intimate where the 
bump is coming. Humph! Perhaps he doesn’t 
know. I bet that Andy McCarrey, if he has 
planned to hold up this train again, is not telling 
many people about it. 

“Just those who do his wicked work. And 
who are they f Is Whitey Malone down there 
in Shadow Valley yet? Is it he whom Zeph is 
watching? Did he set off the dynamite that blew 
out that pillar ? 

“My goodness! I could ask a hundred ques¬ 
tions along this line and get the same answer 
to all. Nothing! Well-” 

The train left the outskirts of Rockton with¬ 
out any trouble. It ran smoothly over the well- 
ballasted track. The engineer and firemen gazed 
ahead keenly. All were on the alert for trouble, 
but Ralph did not tell his firemen of the warning 
he had received. 

“Why worry them?” he thought. “It’s bad 
enough that I should feel as though a sword 
were hanging over me.” 



CHAPTER XXIII 


WHAT LIES AHEAD? 

Whether it was wise or not, Ralph Fairbanks 
kept this special suspense to himself. In truth, 
while a fast train like the Midnight Flyer is 
under headway, the crew on the locomotive have 
little time for conversation. 

The atmosphere in the cabin of such an engine 
as this great eight-wheeler drawing the express 
was tense enough all the way. There were but 
four let-ups in this mental strain which was felt 
by the firemen, as well as by the engineer. The 
Flyer pulled down to a stop at four stations be¬ 
fore reaching the end of the run at Hammerfest. 
At these stops only, could the men on the loco¬ 
motive talk with comfort. 

More keenly than ever on this run did Ralph 
watch for signals. With raised hands he and the 
fireman at the other side of the cab signaled to 
each other the nature of the switch targets and 
semaphore lights as they picked them up. 

And now and then, at some dangerous crossing 
or lonely, empty station, the young engineer 

193 


194 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


caught the secret signal of Mr. Adair’s police— 
the double flash of an electric torch from the 
bushes or some other hiding place. The chief 
detective's operatives were on hand and faithful 
to their trust. 

This fact reminded Ralph the more keenly of 
Zeph Dallas. What was he doing? Indeed, 
where was he and what was his situation on this 
night when so much seemed at stake ? 

Fryburg was the first stop. The Midnight 
Flyer drew in there without a thing having been 
observed suggesting the nature of the threat 
of which Ralph had been warned in the paper he 
had found under his bench. 

The night operator at this station ran out and 
along the side of the train to the locomotive. He 
reached up a message to Ralph and gave another 
to the conductor. Under the light near his 
shoulder Ralph read the following: 

“Fairbanks, engineman, Train 202:— 

Speed up. Fire reported in timber Shadow 

Y r alley near tracks. 

“FIopkins, Super.” 

“That is what it is, then,” said the telegraph 
operator. “I heard an hour ago that the sky 
was red over that way. But there has been no 


WHAT LIES AHEAD? 


195 


report come in from Shadow Valley Station.’’ 

“Reckon the op. can’t see it there any better 
than you can,” said Ralph. “You know the sta¬ 
tion is on this slope of the ridge.” 

“I like that ‘speed up,’ ” growled Stilling, who 
had read the message over Ralph’s shoulder. 

“Wonder what the Great I Am thinks we are?” 

\ 

“He knows we’re on time, anyway,” said the 
conductor, and started back along the coaches, 
calling “All Aboard!” 

Ralph, as he eased his locomotive into smooth 
action, considered the difficulty ahead of him. 
It was more than a matter of keeping to schedule. 
That was important enough. He confessed to 
himself now that he thoroughly disliked Mr. Hop¬ 
kins; but much as he disliked the supervisor, he 
realized that this wire was worthy of considera¬ 
tion. 

If the forest fire reached the right of way be¬ 
fore the Flyer could descend into Shadow Val¬ 
ley, the train of varnished cars might not get 
through at all. Taking a chance with a freight 
train in a burning area of timber, as Ralph had 
actually done in the past, was an entirely different 
matter from plunging into a conflagration with 
Pullman coaches. 

Besides, the smoke and flames might cloud 
the vision of the engine crew so that they could 


jg6 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


not see clearly the right of way. An obstacle 
placed on the rails by the strikers, who might be 
the cause of the fire itself, could derail the big 
locomotive in the middle of the burning woods 
and place the crew of the train and the passengers 
in great peril. 

Ralph could not fail to remember the strange 
warning he had received before leaving Rock- 
ton. If he was “due for a bump” it might be 
that the locality of the attempted wreck was in 
the midst of the fire. 

Shadow Valley offered every opportunity for 
the rascals who were fighting the Great Northern 
to carry out a hold-up or cause a serious wreck. 
The lower plain of the valley was a wild country 
of both field and forest. There were few farm¬ 
steads, and those mostly of squatters who had 
broken ground in small patches. 

Hanging above the right of way of the rail¬ 
road, as at Devil’s Den, were lofty crags, wooded 
for the most part, and offering plenty of hide¬ 
outs for outlaws and tramps in general. 

Ralph remembered the recent bandit scare at 
Hardwell. The fellow with the flour sack over 
his head, of whom Fiske, the telegraph• operator, 
had told the engineer, was a person to consider 
at this time. 

That bandit might be a free lance outlaw or he 


WHAT LIES AHEAD? 


197 


might be working with Andy McCarrey and his 
gang of trouble-makers. Almost, Ralph was 
convinced, Zeph Dallas must know about that 
outlaw. Did the same fellow dynamite the 
trestle pillar at Devil's Den? 

“My gracious! how I'd like to get off this 
run and take a hand in dealing with these 
scoundrels myself,” groaned Ralph. “I'd like to 
find Zeph and learn what he knows. I just 
ache to get into the fight!” 

He was in peril enough. He knew that, of 
course. On every foot of the way ahead lay un¬ 
certainty. But his work now was passive. He 
craved action. He desired greatly to know 
what lay ahead. The situation was fraught with 
so much uncertainty that Ralph Fairbanks was 
in keen expectation of momentary disaster. 

It was a star-lit night; but with the approach 
of the false dawn a misty curtain was drawn 
across the sky. The zenith looked as though it 
were covered with a vast milky way. On the 
earth, even where open fields bordered the tracks, 
the shadows became denser. 

Too-hoo! Hoo! shrieked the whistle of the 
Midnight Flyer. 

Those passengers sleeping so comfortably in 
their berths had no thought for the anxiety that 
tugged at the heart of the young engineer in the 


198 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


locomotive cab. Ralph hung out of the cab win¬ 
dow as the pilot struck a short curve, and tried 
to catch a glimpse of the right of way ahead of 
the focal point of the headlight. 

He saw the flash on the instant that the fire¬ 
man pulled the whistle cord again—a long flash, 
then two short ones. It was the signal agreed up¬ 
on by Bob Adair and his operatives to pull down 
any train they wished to board. 

Ralph had not expected that the Midnight 
Flyer would be stopped on any pretext. He was 
all but willing to fly by without paying atten¬ 
tion to the signal. Then memory of the warning 
he had received came to his mind and he shut 
off the power on the huge locomotive. He ap¬ 
plied the brakes gently. The long train eased 
to almost a standstill. 

Out of the brush beside the way popped a figure 
in a long coat. The man leaped the ditch and 
boarded the locomotive steps. Instantly Ralph 
threw off the brakes and opened the throttle. 
The man sagged into the seat behind the young 
engineer. The latter could hear the breath sob¬ 
bing in the fellow’s throat. He glanced back at 
him and recognized one of Adair’s old operatives, 
Frank Haley. 

“What under the sun’s the matter, Haley ?” 


c 


WHAT LIES AHEADf 


199 

shouted Ralph, so that his companion might hear, 
for the wheels were drumming again. 

“Fra not sure. I was back on the road at a 
house, telephoning, when the girl on the switch¬ 
board at Shadow Valley began to broadcast some¬ 
thing that I got. I dropped the receiver and beat 
it so as to catch you.” 

“What is the matter?” repeated Ralph anx¬ 
iously. 

“There’s been a wreck—a bad one.” 

“Where?” 

“Down in the valley.” 

“Why, there’s a fire there, tool” 

“Yes. And the fire guard is out already to 
try to put it out. But this is something else. 
A train has been derailed, and the girl says all 
railroad dicks are supposed to get down there 
in a hurry. That is why I took the chance of 
stopping the Midnight Flyer,” concluded Haley. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


TERRIBLE NEWS 

“What train is off the iron?’’ asked Ralph 
quickly. “Anything ahead of us? Will we be 
held up?” 

That was his first consideration. To think of 
the Flyer’s schedule as being of the first im¬ 
portance had become an obsession with him. 

“I didn’t get any details,” said Haley, over 
the engineer’s shoulder. “I don’t even know 
whether the wreck is this side or the other side 
of the burning woods. But somehow I’ve got 
to get there. Adair’s orders.” 

“Let’s see,” ruminated Ralph, “there is Sixty- 
four that takes the siding at Cole’s Station to let 
us pass. Hold on! She hasn’t much more than 
left Shadow Valley. The only other west-bound 
train in our way right now is the passenger ac¬ 
commodation that pulls into Oxford just ahead of 
us. Number Fifty-two. , Think it may be her, 
Haley?” 1 

Haley had caught most of what the engineer 
said. He shook his head. 


200 


TERRIBLE NEWS 


201 


“The wreck may be on the eastbound track/* 
he observed. 

“You’re right at that!” exclaimed Ralph. “We 
pass Number T hirty-three, eastbound passenger, 
this side of the Devil’s Den, Where would she 
be about now? Let’s see.” 

Without looking at the printed schedule which 
every trainman carries, Ralph figured out from 
his memory of the train dispatcher’s orders 
which he had himself formulated the locality 
of Number 33 if it was on time. 

“That Thirty-three comes clear from the Junc¬ 
tion, doesn’t she?” asked Haley, over Ralph’s 
shoulder. 

“Yes. She leaves Shelby Junction at ten- 
forty-” 

The young fellow halted in his speech. A new 
thought stabbed him to the quick. Cherry Hop¬ 
kins had telegraphed her father that she was 
leaving Shelby Junction at that hour. If any¬ 
thing had happened to Number 33 this girl was 
aboard it! 

He said nothing more to Haley, but gave his 
strict attention to the running of the train. But 
the specter of the wreck ahead took on a grimmer 
cast in Ralph Fairbanks’ mind. 

If there was any way of coaxing more speed 
out of the big locomotive, the engineer put it to 



202 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


the test now. The run between Fry burg and 
Shadow Valley Station was not a long one, at 
best. He had lost two minutes in shutting down 
to let Frank Haley aboard. Ralph recovered 
those two minutes and steamed into the next stop 
with another minute to spare. 

Early morning though it was, the station plat¬ 
form was thronged. Ahead, as Ralph and his 
crew could now see, the sky was blood red. The 
forest fire must be of great consequence and burn¬ 
ing a big area in the Shadow Valley basin. 

The fire had called the curious together at the 
railroad; but news of the wreck on the far side 
of the valley was likewise rife. The station 
agent himself was on hand and brought the engi¬ 
neer and conductor the messages. They read: 

“Speed up to get ahead of fire in Shadow 
Valley.” 

“Wreck of 33 between Hard well and Tim¬ 
ber Brook. Reported spread across right 
of way.” 

The second message struck Ralph to the 
heart. He had feared it. Poor Cherry! He 
felt that she might be seriously injured, or even 
dead. 

When he saw doctors, nurses, and a hospital 


TERRIBLE NEWS 


203 


outfit getting aboard one of the Pullmans he was 
more than convinced that the wreck had been a 
terrible catastrophe. 

“If those strikers did it, it will break the back 
of the strike," declared Haley, with confidence. 

Ralph felt no interest in the strike just then. 
He was visualizing Cherry Hopkins’ pretty figure 
writhing in a tangle of flaming wood and scorch¬ 
ing iron. 

If Cherry was killed or disfigured, her mother 
surely would die. Supervisor Hopkins might 
lose all his family at one blow! Ralph found 
himself considering the supervisor’s case with a 
feeling of sympathy which he had never supposed 
he would have for the crotchety railroad official. 

There were several railroad detectives riding 
on the locomotive when Number 202 pulled out 
of Shadow Valley Station; but they talked among 
themselves. The crew of the locomotive had too 
much to do right then to engage in any conversa¬ 
tion. 

Ralph hung out of his window, watching the 
ribbons of steel ahead of the pilot. Where the 
track was straight, the mild glare of the head¬ 
light glistened along the rails for yards upon 
yards. He could mark every joint of the steel 
rods. 

At times he glanced skyward. That angry 


204 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

glare quenched such light as remained of the 
misted stars. The train mounted the remainder 
of the grade and then took the straight pitch 
down to that curve on the side of Shadow Val¬ 
ley which had already been the scene of several 
exciting events for the young railroader. 

Now and then they flew past a closed station 
where only the night lamps and switch targets 
revealed life. The small hamlets near these sta¬ 
tions, themselves endangered by the fire below— 
especially, if the wind rose—were all but deserted. 
All the able-bodied men had joined the State fire 
guard in opposing the forest fire. 

Ralph could see at last the bottom of the valley. 
Ilf the fire had been set, and for the purpose of 
overwhelming the railroad, the wind at first had 
been against the criminals’ plans. It had spread 
in a direction away from the right of way. 

The bottomlands of Shadow Valley were en¬ 
veloped in crimson flames, and the smoke rising 
from this pit was borne northward and away 
from the line. But it was a veritable sea of fire! 

A great dead pine that had been a landmark 
ever since Ralph had known this division suddenly 
sprang into flame as though it were by spontane*- 
ous combustion. It stood alone on a knoll and 
there was little but low brush near its base. Yet, 


TERRIBLE NEWS 


205 

of a sudden, it was aflame from root to topmost 
twig! 

'‘A few of ’em like that burning near the tracks 
would settle us!” thought the young engineer. 
“One at least would be sure to fall. If we 
headed into it—good-night!” 

The men riding on the locomotive were all 
eagerness as the Flyer slid down the incline. 
Ralph could give but a glance now and then to 
the fire, for never had he watched the rails 
ahead more closely. 

The warning he had received before leaving 
Rockton still loomed importantly in his mind. 
He was sure that had not referred to the wreck 
of Number 33. His own train was threatened 
with disaster! 

His strained interest in Cherry Hopkins’ fate, 
however, urged him to drive the Flyer as fast as 
* he dared. The smooth slope into the heat and 
glow of the furnace-like valley tempted him to 
push the engine to the limit of her speed. Num¬ 
ber 202 was actually flying before she was half 
way to the curve this side of the Devil’s Den! 


CHAPTER XXV 


THROUGH THE FLAMING FOREST 

Again Ralph thought of the night when Zeph 
Dallas had leaped upon the bowlder beside the 
right of way and had waved him the signal 
“Albs clear” as the Flyer took the curve above 
Devil’s Den. But there was nobody on guard 
at this point, now. 

Number 202 came rushing down to the danger¬ 
ous point. Ralph shut off the throttle and ap¬ 
plied the brakes with judgment. He knew that 
he was some minutes ahead of his schedule, but 
he hated to retard the train at all. 

The wreck on the other side of the valley—the 
wreck of the train on which Cherry Hopkins had 
taken passage for Rockton—drew Ralph like a 
magnet. The news of the terrible disaster had 
shaken even the detectives riding on the loco¬ 
motive. 

The express took the curve. The track was 
clear to the next easy turn, right at the beginning 
of the trestle where the pillar had been blown out. 

A gang had been at work here putting in new 

206 



THROUGH THE FLAMING FOREST 


207 


masonry to take the place of the impermanent 
pillar which now held up the trestle, but the for¬ 
est fire to the north had called them off the job. 

Every railroad employee who could possibly be 
spared, had been sent to aid the State fire guard. 
One man was here to watch the dangerous spot, 
and with his lantern he signaled the Midnight 

Fiver to come on. 

✓ 

Ralph ran on easily to the end of the trestle, 
and so over it and onto the firm ground beyond. 
He speeded up again. But now the heat of the 
flaming forest began to be felt even in the loco¬ 
motive cab. 

“Hey, Fairbanks!” shouted Frank Haley, the 
detective, in the engineer’s ear. “Hey, you going 
to take the chance? I believe there is a back- 
draught. The fire is coming this way.” 

Ralph nodded, with grimly set lips. He had 
noted the cloud of flame-streaked smoke lying 
across the tracks not half a mile ahead. How 
wide was that cloud? Were the trees directly be¬ 
side the right of way on fire now ? What, indeed, 
was he driving the express into? 

He gripped the reverse lever. A flashlike 
picture of his own train wrecked and in the midst 
of the flaming forest rose before Ralph’s mental 
vision. Ought he to risk the unknown peril 
masked by the rose-hued cloud of drifting smoke? 


208 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

But the thought of the wreck ahead called him 
on. Cherry in peril! Perhaps dying of her in¬ 
juries. The thought was so enthralling that the 
young engineer could not bring himself to the 
reversal of the locomotive’s mechanism and the 
pulling down of the heavy train. He did shut 
off some speed. They rolled into the cloud of 
smoke at less than thirty miles an hour. At that 
rate, he could have stopped the heavy train with¬ 
in a hundred yards. 

The suspense, if not the heat from the fire, 

brought the perspiration out on Ralph Fairbanks’ 

face as he leaned from the window. He shaded 

his eyes with his hand, trying to spy through 

the smother of smoke. The headlight’s beam 

was dimmed bv the cloud. Now and then 

* 

tongues of fame seemed to leap through it, as 
though reaching to lap the locomotive. 

Above and higher than the rumble of the train 
he now distinguished the roar of the conflagra¬ 
tion. With it came the loud snapping of falling 
trees and explosions when dead timber burst from 
the heat of the fire that consumed it at the heart. 

Fie realized that he was taking an awful chance, 
and he had taken it on his own responsibility. At 
any point the pilot might crash into some fallen 
monarch of the forest. 

The heat came up into his face in a suffocating 


THROUGH THE FLAMING FOREST 


209 


wave. Ralph was forced to draw back into the 
cab. He had been wise enough to close the for¬ 
ward and first side window on his side of the 
locomotive. Embers—flaming and white-hot— 
began rattling against the glass. 

A ball of fire—the torn-away top of some 
coniferous tree—hurtled overhead, barely miss¬ 
ing the smokestack, and fell flaming and smok¬ 
ing upon the firemen's side of the boiler. The 
varnish began to smoke. Stilling leaped through 
the front window, ran along the board, and kicked 
the flaming bush off the locomotive. 

The fire was sweeping closer and closer to the 
right of way. Ralph realized at last that he was 
driving into, not through, a belt of smoke and 
flame. 

Ahead, and across the valley, the forest had 
ignited closer to the rails. The farther they 
went, the greater the danger. 

This discovery was made too late, however. 
Ralph realized that it would be worse than 
ridiculous to stop and try to back out of the fire 
zone. The flames were being swept nearer and 
nearer to the tracks. He opened wide his throttle 
again and the Flyer drove at increased speed 
into whatever fate had in store for them. 

The headlight seemed utterly quenched now by 
the glare of the fire. Smoke swirled into the 



210 RALPH ON TRIE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

cab and filled their lung’s. Choking and cough¬ 
ing, the detectives cowered on the deck. The 
fireman on duty at the furnace could scarcely 
see what he was about. Stilling, the other fire¬ 
man, could see no more than Ralph could ahead of 
the locomotive. 

Had the strikers or the ruffians employed in 
secret by Andy McCarrey imagined this situation 
they could easily have derailed the Midnight 
Flyer. Any obstacle on the track would have 
brought the fast train to grief. But if the for¬ 
est fire was started by McCarrey’s order, he ex¬ 
pected that the fire itself would halt the trains 
on the division. His object, at most, was to 
throw the trains out of schedule, rather than 
to wreck the trains. 

The Midnight Flyer’s arrival at the basin of 
Shadow Valley a little ahead of her schedule, if 
anything, and the fact that Ralph Fairbanks was 
willing to take a chance overcame the conspiracy 
of the strike leaders. 202 came through the 
danger area without much hurt. The crew and 
detectives on the locomotives suffered the most. 
The train was a vestibule train for its entire 
length and the doors were kept closed. Such 
little heat and smoke as entered the ventilators 
was of small consequence. 

In a few minutes the locomotive pilot burst 


THROUGH THE FLAMING FOREST 


211 


through the far side of the smoke-cloud. The 
headlight beamed along the rails again. The 
forest here lay untouched by fire on either side 
of the right of way. 

Haley smote Ralph on the shoulder, a congratu¬ 
latory blow. 

“Good boy, Fairbanks!” he shouted. “I 
thought you were running us into a hot corner 
one while. But you certainly know your busi¬ 
ness. How far are we from that wreck?” 

Ralph could figure that out exactly after a 
glance at the first numbered signpost. He in¬ 
creased the speed of the train on the instant. 

Not far ahead now lay the scene of the disaster, 
of which they had secured so few particulars. 
Timber Brook, the little settlement mentioned in 
the message that had been passed up to him at 
Shadow Valley Station, was already in sight. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


THE WRECK 

There was a red lamp out for the Flyer just 
beyond Timber Brook. Ralph pulled down to a 
crawl and set the pilot of his engine almost 
against the lamp that had been placed between 
the rails. Around the next turn was the wreck¬ 
age of Number 33. 

A white-faced section hand came to Ralph’s 
side of the cab while the detectives climbed down 
and started ahead along the right of way. 

“What happened to her?” the young engineer 
asked the laborer. 

“They set up two ties between the rails and the 
old mill was thrown off the track. It carried 
half the train with it. Only one car—the 
smoker—overturned, but everybody was badly 
shaken up.” 

“How many killed?” gasped Ralph anxiously. 

“Not a one. Lucky, I call it. And only a 
dozen or so hurt to any amount.” 

The hospital outfit that had come from Shadow 

Valley Station went by on a trot. Ralph was 

212 


THE WRECK 


213 


eager to leave his post and to go forward to 
satisfy himself about Cherry Hopkins, but he 
could not do this at once. 

He could not pull the train forward, for the 
locomotive of Number 33 was across the west¬ 
bound track. Finally, after some minutes of 
suspense, he was informed by wire from the sta¬ 
tion just passed that the delayed Flyer was to 
remain where it was until the rails were cleared. 
He could not have run it back, anyway, for the 
fire was now burning on both sides of the right 
of way. 

Leaving Stilling in command of the locomotive, 
and with the conductor’s permission, Ralph 
finally got away and hurried around the curve to 
the scene of the eastbound train's wreck. 

The wrecking train from Oxford was on the 
scene, and a big crew was at work clearing the 
rails. But Ralph saw that he would be very late 
when he pulled into Hammerfest that morning. 

He saw Frank Haley, and the detective told 
him that, without a doubt, the wreck had been 
caused by ghouls working in the pay of the wild¬ 
cat strike leaders. 

“They knocked out one of our guards, and he 
only came to after the accident had occurred. He 
is in the hospital car. He tells me a curious 
thing, Fairbanks.” * 


214 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


“What is that ?” asked the young engineer. 

“He says that at least one of the men who at¬ 
tacked him had his head and face muffled in a 
flour sack. He had cut a hole through it to see 
through. Didn’t that fellow at Hardwell report 
that the bandit that held him up and robbed the 
station the other night was masked in that way?” 

“He did. I talked with Fiske myself,” Ralph 
agreed. “And I had my doubts then that the 
fellow was merely a robber. In this case it seems 
to be proved that he did not wreck the train to rob 
the passengers.” 

“Nothing like that! It was just a ghastly 
thing, planned to injure the road. If we could 
only connect this fellow in the flour-sack mask 
with Andy McCarrey and his co-workers, we 
would have a case that would surely send Andy 
over the road to the penitentiary.” 

“I hope you get the evidence,” said Ralph 
heartily. 

Ralph’s interest, however, was much more 
closely held by another thing. Where was 
Cherry Hopkins? Had she been injured? Was 
she one of those who were in the hospital car 
that had been brought down from Oxford 
coupled to the wrecking train? 

Leaving the detective, Ralph hurried to the 


THE WRECK 


215 

hospital car. A doctor who had come down from 
Shadow Valley Station was just coming out. 

“Nothing much I can do,” he said cheerfully. 
“Everybody is in good trim. A pretty case of 
compound fracture, a comminuted fracture of the 
left arm, a broken nose and possibly two cases 
of rib fracture—can’t really tell without an X-ray 
examination. And-” 

“But who are the cases, Doctor?” Ralph asked 
in anxiety. “Are they men or women, or—or 
girls ?” 

“No young people hurt at all. (I should say 
the youngest patient was thirty-five years of age.” 

“Great!” exclaimed the young fellow, with a 
sigh of relief. 

The doctor stared at him, then grinned. 
“You’re a sympathetic person—I don’t think!” 

But Ralph did not stop to explain. He hur¬ 
ried away to mix with the passengers of the 
wrecked train w r ho hung upon the fringe of the 
scene where the wreckers were hard at work. 
He saw few feminine passengers in these groups, 
and nowhere did he see the face and figure he 
w^as in search of. 

He entered the cars still standing on the rails 
and walked through from one end to the other. 
Cherry Hopkins was in none of them. He 



216 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


hesitated at first to speak to anybody about the 
girl, but finally he saw the conductor of the 
wrecked accommodation. 

“Wait a moment, Mr. Carlton,” said Ralph, 
holding the excited man by the sleeve. “Do you 
remember if the supervisor's daughter was one 
of your passengers to-night?” 

“Supervisor Hopkins’ girl?” exclaimed Carl¬ 
ton. “Why, yes, she was. I mind seeing her 
father’s pass, viseed by him for her use. Yes, 
she came with us from Shelby Junction.” 

“So I understood,” said Ralph. “Have you 
seen her since the accident ?” 

“Why, I— No, II haven’t, Fairbanks!” 

Ralph followed Carlton back through the train. 
Most of the women were gathered in one car. 
Carlton asked briskly if any of them had seen 
Miss Cherry, Supervisor Hopkins’ daughter. 

Several of the women remembered the girl. 

“She was not hurt. I am sure of that,” said 
one woman whose arm was in a sling, “for she 
helped bandage my arm. Then, it seems to me, 
she ran out of the car to see what was going on. 
I have not seen her since.” 

Nobody else remembered having seen her since 
soon after the wreck. Carlton, the conductor, 
had done all he could to aid Ralph in his quest. 
The latter was forced to go back to his own 


THE WRECK 


217 


train without finding the supervisor’s daughter. 

One thing that he had learned, however, 
quieted the young fellow’s anxiety. It seemed 
quite sure that Cherry had not been hurt when 
Number 33 left the track. If she could help her 
fellow passengers after the accident, she was in no 
need of attention herself. 

His relief was not so great, however, as he 
desired. He had not seen and spoken with the 
girl. Three hours later, when he finally got his 
train to Hammerfest, he wired the man he knew 
would be in charge of the train dispatching at 
Rockton, this question: 

“Find out for me secretly if Miss Hop¬ 
kins has arrived with other passengers of 
wrecked 33.” 

Before he pulled out of Hammerfest on the 
return trip the answer to his question was handed 
up to him by the local telegraph operator: 

“No. Hop. is crazy. What do you know? 
Girl disappeared at scene of wreck.” 


/ 


CHAPTER XXVII 


WHERE IS CHERRY? 

The responsibilities of the driver of a Gass-A 
train such as Ralph Fairbanks conducted are not 
to be belittled. His mind must be given to the 
running of his locomotive, and that first of all, 
no matter what else may happen. Death or 
disaster must not swerve the engineer from his 
immediate duty. 

The express back to Rockton was now the 
young fellow’s charge. When he arrived at the 
scene of the morning wreck the eastbound way 
was clear again and he had to drive right on. 
With all his heart he desired to stop the loco¬ 
motive, desert it, and make personal search about 
the neighborhood for some trace of the super¬ 
visor’s daughter. 

What could have happened to Cherry Hopkins ? 
She surely had not been injured at the time of the 
wreck. Then what had become of her after 
she had run out of the car to view the wreckage 
closer? 

In no possible way, as far as Ralph could see, 

218 



WHERE IS CHERRY? 


219 


could Cherry have been hurt at a later time and 
her injury not reported. The train crew and pas¬ 
sengers were all about her, or so it seemed reason¬ 
able to suppose, while she viewed the wreck. 
Her disappearance was a mysterious thing! 

Ralph could not even pull down his locomotive 
at the place where Number 33 had been wrecked. 
He got the signal from the guaV beside the 
tracks and had to push on. Despi he lire, that 
fortunately was now blowing away from the 
tracks, he made the run without any trouble and 
arrived at the Rockton terminal at 11 130. 

The young engineer had no desire to see Mr. 
Barton Hopkins at this time. He learned from 
(the day telegraph operator that nothing new 
about Cherry had been discovered. The super¬ 
visor had become wildly excited when he had tried 
to find his daughter and could not do so. It 
was positive that the girl had not arrived in town. 
She had surely disappeared at the scene of the 
wreck of Number 33. 

Ralph did not go home at once after being re¬ 
lieved of his duty on the locomotive. Instead, he 
searched for Bob Adair. But the chief detec¬ 
tive had not returned. It was believed he had 
gone down into Shadow Valley to examine into 
the wreck at first hand. 

Ralph wondered if Mr. Adair was in the super- 


220 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


visor’s confidence. Had the road detective gone 
to Shadow Valley to look for Cherry Hopkins? 
The young fellow was tempted greatly to take the 
first train for the vicinity of the morning’s 
disaster! 

Again, and quite involuntarily, Ralph found 
himself passing through the street on which the 
Hopkins family lived. He hesitated at the door 
of the bungalow, then ventured up the walk and 
rang the bell. A maid servant came to the door. 

She started back and half closed the door when 
she saw Ralph in his overalls and cap. It was 
evident that she had been warned against re¬ 
ceiving employees of the railroad. 

“What do you want?” demanded the girl 
sharply. 

“I don’t suppose Mr. Hopkins is at home?” 
asked Ralph. 

“You know he ain’t supposed to be home at 
this time of day.” 

“And—and hasn’t Miss Cherry returned?” 

The maid broke out crying. “Ain’t you heard ? 
She’s dead—or lost—or something. Her father 
is ’most crazy about it-” 

“And Mrs. Hopkins?” Ralph interrupted. 
“What does she think?” 

“They don’t dare tell her. Anyway, Mrs. 
Hopkins isn’t here. They took her last evening 



WHERE IS CHERRY? 


221 


to Dr. Poole’s sanitarium. She’s going under an 
operation. Miss Cherry was coming back to be 
with her.” 

“That’s tough,” muttered Ralph, turning away. 

He went home feeling much disturbed. Mrs. 
Fairbanks had not only obtained some news of 
the wreck at Shadow Valley, but she had got a 
garbled account of Supervisor Hopkins’ family 
troubles. 

“They have taken that poor woman to the 
sanitarium, and they say he won’t let the girl 
come home to her mother,” Ralph’s mother said, 
quite excitedly. “Somebody ought to talk to 
that Barton Hopkins.” 

“Hold on! Hold on!” advised her son. “This 
is one time when that ‘little bird’ of yours has 
got the news wrong. I positively know that Mr. 
Hopkins sent for Cherry to return. She left 
Shelby Junction last night on the ten-forty train 
«—Number Thirty-three.” 

“Why, Ralph, that was the train that was 

wrecked!” 

“Yes, Mother,” the young fellow replied with 
more gravity. “And, believe me, I’m worried 
enough. The Flyer was held up two hours and 
more by the wreck of Thirty-three. I got a 
chance to search for Cherry. She wasn’t there. 
She’s lost—disappeared.” 


222 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“Disappeared?” his mother cried, in amaze¬ 
ment. 

“Yes. She was aboard the train. The con¬ 
ductor remembered her. Ladies told me they 
saw her after the train was derailed. She was 
all right then. But she was not to be found when 
I inquired, nd 5 ; .he did not reach Rockton with 
the other p;;-. weugers.” 

“Thi: awful, Ralph! What does Mr. Hop¬ 

kins say?” 

“I don’t know. I’m sure I don’t want to see 
him. But Mr. Adair has gone over to Shadow 
Valley, and jnerhaps he has gone to look for 
Cherry. My gracious! I’d like to go myself. 
If I hadn’t promised the G. M. that I would stick 
to the Midnight Flyer, I would be tempted right 
now to throw up my job and join any search 
party that may look for Cherry.” 

“Are you afraid the strikers have something 
to do with her disappearance, Ralph?” asked his 
mother. 

“I’m afraid of what that Andy McCarrey 
might do. I have said from the start that this 
was a personal fight between McCarrey and the 
super. And Hopkins can be hurt, and hurt 
badly, through Cherry.” 

“And his poor wife ill as she is, too! It is 
dreadful,” repeated Mrs. Fairbanks. “I do wish 


WHERE IS CHERRY? 


223 


you could help look for her, my hoy; although I 
wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble.” 

“Oh, that would be all right. I am not afraid 
of trouble. But I can’t go back on the G. M. 
He is my best friend.” 

His mother was thinking deeply. 

“Ralph, my boy,” she said, of a sudden, “isn’t 
it true that Zeph disappeared down there m 
Shadow Valley?” 

“That’s true enough, Mother. But Zeph is 
a different person. He can take care of him¬ 
self. He is not a delicate girl, helpless in the 
hands of such villains as Andy McCarrey and his 
associates. Cherry-” 

“'I was just thinking,” said the widow, “that 
Zeph might have been captured and imprisoned 
by the same men and in the same place as the 
supervisor’s girl. Isn’t it possible?” 

“Humph! That’s an idea! I had forgotten 
Zeph since Cherry disappeared. But it might 
be. Indeed, it is more than likely so. Now I 
wonder just where Andy McCarrey is right now? 
That man they tell of in the flour-sack mask 
could not be him. But, then-” 

He was more than puzzled and disturbed. 
Ralph was downright frightened on account of 
Cherry Hopkins. And now he began to wonder 
if he ought not to take Mr. Hopkins into his con- 




224 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

hdence. Although it seemed that the supervisor 
must know as much about the disappearance of 
his daughter as Ralph did. 

Actually the person the young engineer de¬ 
sired most to consult was the road’s chief detec¬ 
tive. But he heard nothing of that gentleman 
that day or in the evening when he went down 
town early. There was a buzz of excitement 
about the terminal offices, however, and Ralph 
learned that while lie had slept at home several 
important events had occurred. 

The police had raided the old tenement in which 
Ralph and Zeph Dallas had had their adventure 
at night with Whitey Malone and the chief strike 
leaders, Andy McCarrey and Griffin Falk. In¬ 
toxicated men coming out of the place had been 
seen and a supply of liquor was found in the 
very upstairs room into which Ralph had peered. 

But the attempt to arrest McCarrey or Falk 
in the place had failed. They had been warned 
of the raid and had got out. Indeed, it was be¬ 
lieved they had left town. 

Another important thing was that Jim Perrin 
of the old shopmen’s union had been suspended 
from his office. Certain men who had been close 
to the traitorous Perrin were likewise under a 
cloud, especially Billy Lyon, Abe Bertholdt, Mike 
Ranny and Sam Peters. The split in the shop- 


WHERE IS CHERRY? 


225 


men’s union was being healed. It was even 
prophesied by some that the wildcat strike would 
be ended as far as the shopworkers of Rockton 
[were concerned within a few hours. 

These bits of news were encouraging in a 
general way, but Ralph Fairbanks’ interest lay 
in an entirely different direction now. Much as 
he had been worried about railroad affairs, 
in his mind the disappearance of Cherry Hopkins 
at the scene of the wreck in Shadow Valley 
loomed up as being far more important. 

Ralph went up to the dispatchers’ offices to 
talk over the schedule with his substitute, and, 
also, to learn of any news that might be rife in 
that department. Naturally, the boys there knew 
little about Supervisor Hopkins and his troubles. 

"Just the same, the lads tell me,” said Johnny, 
who was Ralph’s old assistant, "that Hopkins 
is getting rattled. He has stopped hunting for 
faults to correct in our division system. They 
say he’s got a sick wife and that his girl has run 
away from him.” 

"Bother gossip!” exclaimed- Ralph heatedly. 
"Miss Hopkins has been kidnapped, if anybody 
should ask you. No doubt of that. I am sorry 
for Hopkins.” 

As he went down to the train-shed platform 
he passed the door of the telegraph room. The 


226 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


operator had just been called to the instrument. 
Ralph could not resist halting to listen. 

He was a quick and perfect reader of the 
sounder. And almost instantly his interest was 
caught and held by the message coming over the 
wire. In the first place it came from Timber 
Brook. At this hour Timber Brook Station, near 
the spot where Thirty-three had been wrecked, 
should be closed for the night. 

The message came haltingly. The operator 
sending seemed to be a regular “ham,” as the 
telegraph fraternity call a poor sender. But 
Ralph could not mistake the meaning of what 
came over the wire : 

“B. Hopkins, Super: 

“If you want to see your girl again you 
know who to communicate with and what it 
will cost you. Be quick. We will not wait 
long. We want satisfaction.” 

Ralph could not keep back an excited ejacula¬ 
tion. The operator swung about to look at him. 

“What—what do you think of that?” he 
gasped. 

“Get a repeat!” exclaimed the young engineer. 
“That wasn’t the regular operator at Timber 
Brook.” 








WHERE IS CHERRY? 


227 


“Not much! fit was a rank amateur/’ The 
operator was repeating the distant station’s call 
—TB, TB, TB, in staccato. There was no reply. 
The wire was dead. “It must be a fake.” 

“No fake at all,” returned Ralph hastily. 
“Where is Mr. Hopkins?” 

“He told me he was going to the hospital to 
see how his wife was, and he would be back. 
Here he is!” 

Ralph wheeled. The supervisor came striding 
to the door of the telegraph room. He scowled 
as usual at Ralph. Then he asked the operator: 

“Anything doing?” 

The man hesitated for a moment. Then, in 
silence, he handed the supervisor the record he 
had made of the strange telegraph message. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


RALPH ON THE TRAIL 

Ralph Fairbanks had stepped back under the 
inimical glare of the supervisor’s look. At that 
moment he had been ready to forget Mr. Hop¬ 
kins’ unkindness and unfairness to him. But the 
man’s plain dislike aroused renewed antagonism 
in Ralph’s mind. He turned away and, in spite 
of the tugging at his own heartstrings, was pre¬ 
pared to ignore the supervisor’s trouble. His 
worst fears for Cherry had been realized, and 
he suspected that the blow to her father would be 
well nigh overwhelming. 

Swinging his dinner can, the young engineer 
went down the platform, approaching the big 
locomotive he drove and which had just been 
brought up from the roundhouse by his faithful 
firemen. But before he arrived beside the engine 
he heard a cry and the quick pounding of feet 
upon the cement. He glanced back over his 
shoulder. 

Supervisor Hopkins, white-faced and staring, 

was tearing along after him, waving the telegram 

228 


RALPH ON THE TRAIL 


229 


in his hand. The man was utterly beside himself. 
At last the strain of all his troubles and anxieties 
had broken him. One would scarcely have 
recognized the erstwhile stern and uncompromis¬ 
ing supervisor who had, within four months, 
managed to create so much disturbance on this 
division of the Great Northern Railway. 

‘Tull out! Pull out!” he cried, seizing Ralph’s 
ami and hustling him toward the steps of the 
huge locomotive. 

“Can’t pull out for four minutes, Mr. Hop¬ 
kins,” Ralph said, trying to keep his own voice 
and manner placid. “The schedule-” 

“Hang the schedule!” cried this former ex¬ 
ponent of method and exactness. “Do you know 
what has happened? Those demons!” He 
shook the paper in his hand. “Do you know 
what they have done, Fairbanks?” 

“I read the message off the wire,” returned the 
young fellow coolly. “I have been afraid all 
along that Andy McCarrey’s gang had something 
to do with Miss Cherry’s disappearance.” 

“It is those bloodthirsty strikers!” gasped 
Hoj>kins. 

“The strikers are not bloodthirsty. They are 
men who have worked for the railroad for years. 
Some of them are my neighbors and friends. 
They have been badly advised in this strike, I 



230 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


admit But I doubt if a single ex-employee of 
this division has had anything to do with this 
beastly thing.” 

“This message-” 

“You were threatened before. I guess you 
were threatened before you came to Rockton, 
Mr. Hopkins,” said Ralph quickly. “You are 
pretty sure who is the moving spirit in this das¬ 
tardly crime.” 

“McCarrey. Yes, I know that. But he has 
men to help him. I must get to Shadow Valley 
at once-” 

The gong in the train-shed roof sounded. 
Ralph started up the steps of the locomotive. 
Hopkins remained right at his elbow. 

“You get a seat in one of the coaches where 
you will be comfortable, Mr. Hopkins,” advised 
Ralph. “I’ll get you to the place you want to 
reach as quickly as I can.” 

“I’ll ride with you. Want me to write a pass 
for myself?” the excited supervisor asked. “In 
the locomotive I will be that much nearer the 
place this message came from.” 

“Come aboard, then,” said Ralph, not even 
smiling. “We’ll waive the pass for this once.” 

“All aboard!” called out the conductor from 
the end of the train. 

Ralph leaped to his seat and seized the lever* 




RALPH ON THE TRAIL 


231 


t 

The supervisor followed him into the cab. You 
should have seen the eyes of the two firemen! 

Supervisor Hopkins was certainly shaking. 
Out of the corner of his eye Ralph watched those 
long, lean, red hands twitching nervously. 

“Maybe he has been under this pressure all 
the time/’ Ralph considered. “It might be. He 
is as close-mouthed as a clam. Anybody can 
see that. Mr. Barton Hopkins would never con¬ 
fide in any person as long as he could keep his 
self-control. My gracious! I never saw him 
so broken up.” 

While Ralph was thinking these thoughts he 
was speeding up the great eight-wheeler. The 
train, gaining on its pace with each revolution of 
the drivers, left the Rockton yard behind. It 
whirled up the small slope beyond, and then the 
searchlight, like a bright index finger, pointed 
the way into the black cavern of the cloudy night. 

Suddenly the young engineer realized that Mr. 
Hopkins’ fingers were quiet. He sat on the 
bench without fidgeting as he had at first. Ralph 
could even sense that the man breathed regularly. 

He turned in some surprise to look into Barton 
Hopkins’ face. What had changed him in this 
brief time ? The supervisor’s gaze was fixed 
upon Ralph’s left hand, the hand which rested 
all the time on the throttle. 


232 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

Faster and faster the train sped on. As he had 
promised, the young- fellow was sending the Mid¬ 
night Flyer on at the best pace he could compass. 
Never during the time he had handled the train 
had he made better time. 

On and on they rushed, the wheels drumming 
over the rail-joints with a rhythm of sound that 
could only be compared to faint rifle-fire. 
Again and again the whistle sent its warning 
through the night. They rushed past little sta¬ 
tions and parti-colored switch targets as though 
they were merely painted upon the backdrop of 
the night. 

Now and then a white flash told Ralph that 
Adair’s guards were still on duty. “All’s well” 
they signaled, and he dared keep the heavy train 
at top speed over stretches of road which ordi¬ 
narily would call for more cautious driving. 

The lights of Fryberg finally came into view. 
Distant specks like star-shine at first. Almost 
immediately they were slowing down for the 
town and the bell was jangling. Ralph brought 
the train to a wonderfully easy stop. 

Not for a moment had he been troubled by the 
presence of the supervisor behind him on the seat. 
Fie was so sure of himself that he was never ruf¬ 
fled by being watched at his work. 

But as the locomotive came panting to its stop, 


RALPH ON THE TRAIL 


233 


( 

(Barton Hopkins put a now quite steady hand upon 
Ralph Fairbanks’ shoulder. 

“A wonderful run, Fairbanks,” he said, in his 
usual stern voice. “I had no idea you were such 
a master of your art. I could give you nothing 
but praise for your work. And you have gained 
three minutes over the schedule. I thank you.” 

For some reason Ralph felt a lump in his 
throat. There was something a bit pathetic in 
the supervisor’s honest assurance that he appreci¬ 
ated what little Ralph could do for him. The 
young fellow understood that the man’s keen in¬ 
terest in the way the engineer handled his loco¬ 
motive had aided to calm him and had helped 
him gain control of himself. 

They went on from Fryberg to Shadow Valley 
Station at a speed quite in keeping with the first 
stretch of the run. There was no red glow in 
the sky ahead to-night. When Ralph had re¬ 
turned from Hammerfest the day before the 
area of the forest fire had been much reduced. 

Again the Flyer made the swift plunge into 
the valley. They rounded the curves and crossed 
the trestle at the Devil’s Den in safety. Under 
instructions from the supervisor, the train was 
pulled down at Timber Brook Station. Ralph 
could not stop to learn if anything had happened 
there of moment. 


234 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

The supervisor got down on the lower step of 
the cabin and made a flying leap to the cinder 
path. He waved his hand to Ralph as the latter 
speeded up the train again. Then the lights of 
the little station and the tall figure of the super¬ 
visor were shut out of his sight. 

The Midnight Flyer made another of her fa¬ 
mous runs that morning, and Ralph brought her 
to Hammerfest in ample season for the connec¬ 
tion on the Boise City road. Although he had 
closely applied himself to the running of the train, 
Ralph’s mind was hot with thoughts of the mys¬ 
tery of Cherry Hopkins’ disappearance. 

Something his mother had said regarding Zeph 
Dallas’s dropping out of sight shuttled to and 
fro in his thought; and at last it. pointed to a 
fixed fact. He thought he saw a way of helping 
Hopkins find the place of captivity of his lost 
daughter. 

But to put this idea to the test he must have 
freedom. He rushed to the telegraph office the 
minute he was free of the locomotive and began 
to put in requests for the master mechanic. But 
that individual was at neither end of the division, 
and at that early hour of the day he could not be 
found. 

While Ralph in his anxiety was striving to 
reach Mr. Connoly and was waiting outside the 


RALPH ON THE TRAIL 


235 


telegraph office, he saw an accommodation from 
the west pull in, to the tail of which was attached 
a very familiar private car. He could have tossed 
up his cap in glee as he started on a run for the 
end of the platform. 

Before he reached the private car the general 
manager stepped down and approached the sta¬ 
tion. He hailed Ralph genially. 

“Oh, yes, this is your end of run, isn’t it, 
Ralph? How are you?'’ 

“Terribly troubled, sir,” admitted the young 
engineer. 

“It seems your whole division is troubled,” 
grumbled the general manager. “I have been 
wondering, boy, if you were not right when you 
said that an official should be able to see things 
from the men’s standpoint. This Hopkins-” 

“Don’t say another word against him!” gasped 
Ralph. “Let me tell you!” 

And he proceeded to do so—to tell the genial 
general manager the particulars of everything 
that had happened within his ken on the division 
since Barton Hopkins’ drastic rules had begun 
to create friction. But mainly Ralph gave the 
details of the wreck in Shadow Valley, what had 
led up to it, and what had now resulted from it. 
His text was, after all, Cherry Hopkins. 

“You mean to say those blackguards have 




236 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

stolen the supervisor’s daughter?” cried the 
general manager. “Why, the State police ought 
to be out after them.” 

“Here’s the boy who ought to be after them,” 
declared Ralph boldly, pointing to himself, and 
he went on to sketch for the general manager his 
own belief of what should be done in the matter 
of searching for Cherry. 

“If I could get excused from this run back to 
Rockton I’d be able to do something. If they 
haven’t found her down there in Shadow Valley, 
I believe I can. H’ll get back to Rockton in time 
to take out the Midnight Flyer to-night.” 

“Is there an engineer here able to take over 
your locomotive?” 

“Ben Rogers is the man!” exclaimed Ralph. 
“I’ll put him wise to everything before we reach 
Timber Brook.” 

“Go to it then, boy!” exclaimed the general 
manager. “I am sorry for Barton Hopkins. 
Until this strike came he was saving money right 
and left for the Great Northern. It is a pity that 
he has been under this strain—if he has—all this 
time. I hope Adair is helping him.” 

Ralph had been quite sure that Bob Adair was 
giving his full attention to the kidnapping of 
Cherry Hopkins, and when he dropped off his 
locomotive at Timber Brook he was so assured. 


RALPH ON THE TRAIL 


237 


For he chanced to meet Mr. Adair right at the 
little station. 

When they had exchanged news, Ralph found 
that the chief detective had not thought of the 
point that Mrs. Fairbanks had put into her son’s 
mind. The detectives had spent all the morning 
with Mr. Hopkins in beating the forest on either 
side of the road—even the burned area—for 
some trace of a hideout that the villains might 
use. 

It was learned that the Timber Brook Station 
had been broken into, and one of the kidnappers 
had sent that message to Mr. Hopkins which 
Ralph had heard off the wire. But otherwise, 
nobody had seen any suspicious person about 
the right of way since the wreck of Thirty-three. 

“Come on!” said Ralph excitedly. “I believe 
my mother has the right idea. At any rate, Mr. 
Adair, don’t you think it is worth putting to the 
test?” 

Bob Adair agreed, and they started at once to¬ 
ward the Devil’s Den. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


THE RUN IS ENDED 

Ralph, with Mr. Hopkins, Adair, and several 
of the latter’s assistants, got aboard a dirt train 
going across to the Devil’s Den where the re¬ 
placed pillar under the trestle was still in course 
of construction. Once there, they could easily 
walk up the grade to that point where the young 
engineer had seen fluttering from the bushes 
on the side of the cliff certain articles of apparel 
which he believed belonged to his friend, Zeph 
Dallas. 

The ragged remains of the vest and shirt still 
clung there. The cap had probably been blown 
away. The forest fire had not run up the face 
of the crag, so the wearing apparel had not been 
destroyed. 

“Now, it is a fact,” Ralph put forth, “that 
Zeph hasn’t been seen since the night the Flyer 
was pulled down here for that flaming scarecrow 
when the pillar at Devil’s Den was blown out. 
Nor has he been heard from, has he?” 

“Not a sign of him,” agreed Adair. 

238 


THE RUN IS ENDED 


239 


1 

‘Then make up your mind he went up this cliff, 
and by that path. He probably followed the 
rascals who dynamited the pillar. He was so 
eager that he could not even wait to see if I 
got his fire signal and stopped the train.” 

“That would be just like him,” admitted Bob 
Adair again. 

“Zeph discarded his vest, and then his shirt 
and cap, to mark his trail. I believe it should 
have been followed before.” 

“That sounds reasonable,” said Mr. Hopkins. 
“But that was some time ago. What do you 
suppose has happened to him since?” 

“He was captured by the men he followed. 
That goes without saying. I don’t believe they 
would have killed the boy,” said the chief detec¬ 
tive. “But they would hold him prisoner.” 

“Just as they are holding my daughter,” 
groaned out Mr. Hopkins. 

“Not for ransom, in Zeph’s case,” said Adair 
grimly. “They know nobody would give a dollar 
for him.” 

“I’d give everything I’ve got for him!” cried 
Ralph, in some heat. 

“Well, now, come to think of it,” said Adair, 
with twinkling eyes, “I don’t know but Td give 
something myself to see Zeph clear of the ras¬ 
cals.” 


240 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

“I guess you would!” exclaimed Ralph. “Zeph 
will try anything once, but he is something more 
than a nut. He is faithful and brave and a 
mighty good friend!” 

However, they wasted little time in discussing 
the fine possibilities of the situation. Ralph 
knew the path up the crag pretty well, and he led 
the way. Two of the detective police were left 
below with rifles to watch for any person who 
might appear above to obstruct the climbers. 

To climb that cliff at night must have been 
hard work. But by daylight Ralph and his com¬ 
panions did not find it particularly difficult. In 
half an hour they approached the summit of the 
ascent. 

On the way Ralph had made sure that the rags 
of garments still hanging to the brush had 
actually belonged to Zeph Dallas. He even 
found the yellow brown cap that had fallen upon 
a shelf of rock. At any rate, Zeph had passed 
this way and must have left the articles for some 
good and sufficient reason. 

“He expected to get into trouble, or he already 
was in trouble,” Ralph said to Mr. Adair. 
“Think of him shedding his clothes in this way!” 

“I have got through wondering about Zeph,” 
admitted the chief detective. “He is always 
breaking out in a new spot.” 


THE RUN IS ENDED 


241 


Ralph, however, could not feel so sure that 
his friend was all right. As he led the way 
“over the top” he almost feared to find Zeph’s 
dead body lying on the rocks. 

But the first thing he found was somebody 
very much alive. As Ralph scrambled over the 
lip of the last shelf of rock a figure suddenly 
popped into view. The head and shoulders of a 
man appeared just above the young fellow. 
And to the latter’s surprise, those head and 
shoulders were shrouded in a flour sack on which 
the red and green lettering was faintly visible. 

“Here he is!” yelled Ralph, and sprang up and 
grabbed the fellow. The latter had a club which 
he tried to use, but he had been so amazed by the 
appearance of the young engineer and his party 
that he was quickly overpowered. 

In fact, Ralph was astride the fellow’s body 
and was tearing off the mask when Mr. Adair 
and Mr. Hopkins reached the ledge of rock. 
Ralph exposed the flaxen head and foolish face of 
Whitey Malone! 

“We’ve got him, anyway, on the count of high¬ 
way robbery,” said Mr. Adair, with satisfaction. 

“What does he know about my daughter?” 
demanded the supervisor. 

“He’d better tell at once,” said the chief de¬ 
tective, “or we may throw him over the cliff.” 


242 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

This threat he made with a wink to Mr. Hop¬ 
kins and Ralph; but Whitey did not see that wink! 
He was scared to the marrow of his bones, 
especially when he was dragged to the edge of 
the rock. 

‘Til show you! I’ll tell!’* he cried. “But 
Andy will kill me.” 

“You tell the truth,” Mr. Adair promised, “and 
you will be out of jail a good many years before 
Andy McCarrey gets through paying the penalty 
for his crimes.” 

It was a point that even Whitey Malone could 
appreciate. Much as he feared McCarrey and 
Griffin Falk, the weak-minded fellow knew that 
he could save himself much trouble by telling all 
he knew to the representatives of the law. 

Back from the verge of this cliff in a thick 
wood was an old charcoal burner's cabin. Zeph 
Dallas, in attempting to follow McCarrey’s ruf¬ 
fians who had dynamited the trestle pillar (Whitey 
had not been in that crime) was captured, as 
Ralph believed, and was held prisoner in the 
charcoal burner’s shack. 

At the time of the wreck of Number 33 in 
Shadow Valley, some of these same employees 
of McCarrey, lurking in the bushes, had recog¬ 
nized Cherry Hopkins and had seized her during 
the confusion. Binding her and muffling her 


THE RUN IS ENDED 


243 


cries, the rascals had taken her by a roundabout 
way to the same shack in which Zeph was held 
prisoner. 

With this information wrenched from the re¬ 
luctant Whitey, Ralph, Supervisor Hopkins, 
Adair and his men, went on to the cabin. They 
approached it with much care, for a large band 
of the outlaws were on guard. 

Ralph and Mr. Adair, who were well informed 
regarding the identity of the striking shopmen, 
saw no ex-railroad employee in the clearing 
w r here the shack stood. But McCarrey and his 
chief henchman, Falk, were there. 

Without doubt, although McCarrey had 
wormed himself into the confidence of the dis¬ 
satisfied shopmen and other employees of the 
division, he had done so merely for his own per¬ 
sonal aggrandizement. He hated the supervisor 
of the division and he had worked merely to con¬ 
trol the strike fund of the ill-advised railroaders 
and to hurt Mr. Barton Hopkins. 

Chance, it seemed, had put Cherry into the 
power of this scoundrel. When he heard that 
she had been captured he left Rockton immedi¬ 
ately and took up his personal fight against the 
supervisor. He knew Hopkins had some money 
and he was determined to make him ransom his 
daughter. 


244 


RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


With this knowledge in their possession, RalpH 
and his companions attacked the gang at the 
charcoal burner’s shack with considerable deter¬ 
mination. Although they had firearms, they 
did not have to use them. Advancing under the 
chief detective’s direction on the clearing from 
all sides, the rescuers clubbed their men down, 
frightening them as much as they injured them. 

While the men were fighting, Ralph ran to the 
door of the shack. He had already heard Zeph’s 
hoarse voice shouting. Ralph burst in the door 
with a stone, shattering the lock. 

As he did so a man hurled himself upon the 
young railroader. Although the attack was 
sudden and from the rear, the young fellow knew 
that his antagonist was Andy McCarrey. 

“I’ve got you, anyway!” growled out the chief 
of the band of scoundrels. “You got into that 
house one night. I remember you! And I bet 
you gave us away.” 

He was much stronger than Ralph, and having 
jumped on him from behind, he bore the youth 
to the ground. He was astride Ralph in an in¬ 
stant, and seized upon the very dornick with 
which his captive had broken the lock of the door. 

In a moment the young railroader might have 
been seriously hurt—even killed! . But rescue in 
the shape of Mr. Barton Hopkins himself arrived 


THE RUN IS ENDED 


245 


in season. Reaching the spot with a clubbed rifle 
in his hands, the supervisor landed the stock of the 
weapon on the side of McCarrey’s head with 
such force that the villain toppled over, quite 

4 

hors de combat for the time being. 

Before Ralph could rise the supervisor had 
sprung to the door of the shack and thrown it 
open. The afternoon sunlight flooded into the 
interior of the place and Barton Hopkins saw his 
daughter, bound to a rude chair and gagged with 
a cloth tied across her face. 

The anxious father was the first to reach the 
girl. He swiftly cut her bonds and tore off the 
bandage while Ralph staggered to an inner door, 
that of a closet where Zeph Dallas was confined. 

“Great Jupiter and little fishes!” gasped Zeph 
hoarsely, when he saw Ralph’s face. “You’ve 
been a long time coming. And they’ve got a 
girl in prison here, too.” 

“They haven’t got anybody in prison now,” 
said Mr. Adair’s cheerful voice from the door¬ 
way. “We’ve got them—and a fine bunch they 
are. That was a nice swipe you gave Andy, Mr. 
Hopkins. It ought to be some satisfaction to you 
to know that he will have to have some new teeth 
if he ever wants to chew his victuals on that side 
of his jaw.” 

The situation had been a serious one, neverthe- 





246 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 

less, for it was later proved that several of the 
men McCarrey had in his band had prison 
records and were desperate criminals. The threat 
to injure the girl if her father did not pay for 
her release might not have been an empty one. 

“However,'” said Mr. Adair, as the friends 
and the supervisor and Cherry made their way 
to Rockton on an evening train, “this not only 
cleans up the McCarrey band, but it is the end of 
the wildcat strike. I don’t know that you had 
been so informed, Mr. Hopkins, but a committee 
of the striking shopmen, and from the old union, 
will wait on you to-morrow, and if you handle the 
situation wisely everything will be going smoothly 
very soon.” 

“Perhaps I have been too stringent in my 
rules,” the supervisor said slowly. “At least, I 
will consider what the men have to offer.” 

Cherry, hearing her father say this, nodded 
brightly to Ralph and squeezed his hand for a 
moment. “I believe you did something to help 
convince father that he was wrong about the rail¬ 
road workers,” she whispered to her friend. 

“As for the strikers themselves,” went on Mr. 
Adair, “the union will get rid of Jim Perrin and 
those that helped him betray the union members 
to McCarrey. I was able to prove to the union 
heads their treachery through the written list 


THE RUN IS ENDED 


24 7 

Ralph got from Malone that night and the warn¬ 
ing Perrin slipped into Ralph’s engine the night 
Thirty-three was wrecked. Undoubtedly Perrin 
believed McCarrey meant to try again to wreck 
the Flyer.” 

“How did he come to consider Ralph at all?” 
asked Mr. Hopkins. “Is Perrin such a close 
friend of yours?” and he asked the question 
directly of the young man. 

“I’ll tell you,” confessed the other. “Some 
time ago Perrin's crippled daughter—a sweet 
little girl—needed to be treated at one of the big 
Eastern hospitals. Mother and I—more mother 
than me,” added Ralph, “were able to assist in 
sending the child there. She has come back 
cured and I expect, Perrin was grateful.” 

It was evident that Mr. Hopkins' estimation of 
Ralph Fairbanks increased by leaps and bounds 
during that run to Rockton. When it was ended 
the supervisor shook hands warmly with the 
young fellow before he hastened his daughter 
away in a taxicab to the hospital, to see her 
mother. 

“I see I have a good deal to thank you for, 
Fairbanks,” the supervisor said. “Believe me, 
I shall not forget it.” 

However, it was a month before Ralph saw 
much more of the Hopkins family, even of 


248 RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER 


Cherry. During that time he continued to drive 
Number 202, and the troubles of all kinds on the 
division gradually cleared up. 

Then another engineer was found to relieve 
Ralph, and he went back to his desk as chief dis¬ 
patcher for the division. It was the evening of 
this day that he kept his first dinner engagement 
at the Hopkins’ bungalow and met the recovered 
wife and mother at her own table. 

Beside-Ralph, too, there sat Mrs. Fairbanks. 
They found that Barton Hopkins, when he wished 
to be, could be a very charming host. And Mrs. 
Fairbanks, as they walked homeward after 
dinner, repeated to her son something she had 
already said about Cherry: 

“That girl is well worth knowing, Ralph.” 

“I’ll tell the world!” agreed the young train 
dispatcher. 


THE END 


THE TOM SWIFT SERIES 

j_ By VICTOR AP PLETON 

) _UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS^ ' 

These spirited tales, convey in a realistic way, the wonderful 
advances in land and sea locomotion. Stories like these are impressed 
■upon the memory and their reading is productive only of good. 

iTOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP ’ 

TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE 
TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS 
TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE 
TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER 
TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE 
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP, 

TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL 

TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS 

TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK 

TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT 

TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH 

TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS 

TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE 


Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York 




























THE OUTDOOR CHUMS SERIES 

By CAPTAIN QUINCY ALLEN 

The outdoor chums are four wide-awake lads, sons of 
wealthy men of a small city located on a lake. The ooys 
love outdoor life, and are greatly interested in hunting, fish¬ 
ing, and picture taking. They have motor cycles, motor 
boats, canoes, etc., and during their vacations go everywhere 
and have all sorts of thrilling adventures. The stories give 
full directions fcr camping out, how to fish, how to hunt wild' 
animals and prepare, the skins for stuffing, how to manage a 
canoe, how to swim, etc. Full of the spirit of outdoor life. 

THE OUTDOOR CHUMS 

Or The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Clulfe 

THE OUTDOOR CHUMS ON THE LAKE 
Or Lively Adventures on Wildcat Island. 

THE OUTDOOR CHUMS IN THE FOREST’ 

Or Laying the Ghost of Oik Ridge. 

. 

THE OUTDOOR CHUMS ON THE GULg jk 
Or Rescuing the Lost Balloonists. 

THE OUTDOOR CHUMS AFTER BIG GAME' 

Or Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness. 

THE OUTDOOR CHUMS ON A HOUSEBOAT 
Or The Rivals of the Mississippi. 

THE OUTDOOR CHUMS IN THE BIG WOODS 
Or The Rival Hunters at Lumber Run. 

THE OUTDOOR CHUMS AT CABIN POINT 
Or The Golden Cup Mystery. 

12mo. Averaging 240 pages. Illustrated. Handsomely 
bound in Cloth. 


Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York 











iXHE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS 


For Little Men and Women 


By LAURA LEE HOPE 

Author of “The Bunny Brown” Series, Etc. 


12mo. DURABLY BOUND. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING I 

l ■ ■ ~ ' ■ ■ - - 

Copyright publications which cannot be obtained else¬ 
where. Books that charm the hearts of the little oneSpj 
and of which they never tire. 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE 

-THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY 
ISLAND 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE 
‘ SEA 

THE BOBBSEY TWINS iN THE GREAT WEST 
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York 

















THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES, 

By LAURA LEE HOPE 

Author of the Popular “Bobbsey Twins” Books 

^- -— i - ... —— ■ 

Wrapper and text illustrations drawn by 
FLORENCE ENGLAND NOSWORTHY 


. 12mo. DURABLY BOUND. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING 


These stories by the author of the “Bobbsey Twins” Books 
are eagerly welcomed by the little folks from about five to ten 
years of age. Their eyes fairly dance with delight at the lively 
doings of inquisitive little Bunny Brown and his cunning, trust¬ 
ful sister Sue. 

y Bunny was a lively little boy, very inquisitive. When he did 
"anything, Sue followed his leadership. They had many adven- 
lures, some comical in the extreme. 

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE 

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRAND* 
PA’S FARM 

r BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING 
CIRCUS 

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP 
REST-A-WHILE 

'BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT 
LU’S CITY HOME 

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS~SISTER SUE IN THE BIG 
WOODS 

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO 
TOUR < 

BUNNY BROWN AND PUS SISTER SUE AND THEIR 
SHETLAND PONY 

nUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A 
SHOW 

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRIST¬ 
MAS TREE COVE ] 


Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York 
























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